I have far fewer (read: none) hints to provide you with on this incognito Highland release – we’ll just have to take it as it comes. 252 bottles at 58.9% ABV and matured in a barrel for 12 years. And still available over on The Whisky Exchange for £74.95.
Nose: Quite resinous with sap and cold whipped cream alongside Battenburg cake, salted toffee and zesty orange. In the background – granite, wet cloth and wire wool. Sweetly mineralistic. A few drops of water presents royal icing together with shingle and moist fabrics.
Taste: A big arrival driven by a high ABV. Zingy orange sherbet and chiselled minerality from slate and shale gives way to salted toffee, sack cloth, Horlicks and Hobnob biscuits. Reduction offers briny oil and orange gel together with notes of silt-packed clay.
Finish: Long with mentholated oakiness and lasting minerality.
Animal, vegetable, mineral? Certainly the latter here with plenty of sharp, honed, rocky qualities very well-aligned to a sweeter, maltier core. Fans of geologically-focussed whiskies should certainly seek this one out.