I’ve seen and tasted a fair few ‘peated highlands’ from cask lists which have been circulating over the past 12 months. A fair number have presented to me as akin to undisclosed Ben Nevis. Whether this Watt Whisky mystery Highland is from Fort William or not doesn’t really matter – peated highland malts usually tick many of my boxes no matter their origin.
This one was a release of 294 bottles which had been matured in a single sherry hogshead for 22 years before being bottle at my favourite ABV of 54%. You’ll still find a few of these knocking around in Europe – though it looks like you’ll be paying a bit of a premium for one.
Nose: Wet casks sitting in earthy dunnages. Damp, mossy peat smoke. Tea chests, cigar wrappers, fig rolls and plump raisins. Chocolate bon bons, moist earth, clay and putty. A superb meeting of sherried mellowness with alluvialness. The addition of water reduces the perceptible moisture levels, favouring cherry cordial and wispy, vegetal smoke.
Taste: Happy place now. Polish, earthy smoke and sherried fruits. Lava rocks, brittle bitumen and coal scuttles join apple sauce, well-aged and polished oakiness and dusty library shelves. The development reinforces the ‘wetness’ with earth, waterlogged fallen trees and asides of eucalyptus. Dilution pushes the sweetness up a notch with walnut skins, scattered berries and lacquered oak panelling.
Finish: Long with dry, old, lingering smoke, pine needles and puffs of menthol.
Hard to fault. Expertly matured whisky that retains a real elemental quality and as a result presents with both breadth and depth. A meeting of characters that were separated at birth but now get right on together at home with one another. I must hunt out a bottle. Oh Mark. Oh Kate….