52 Weeks Later
Bottle Name: A Good Old Fashioned Christmas Whisky 2024
Distillery: Undisclosed Speyside
Bottler: The Whisky Exchange
Region: Speyside Age: 15
“They say, timing is everything. But then they say, there is never a perfect time for anything.”
Anthony Liccione
A lot can happen in a year. A lot has happened in a year. For you, for me, and it turns out - for the whole whisky industry. I doubt many of you would realise how many times I've sat down with the intention of writing, only to stare vacantly at a white screen. Feeling like something has been lost but not knowing exactly what. Seconds becoming minutes, minutes turning to hours. The whole time never knowing where to start. What to say....what not to say? It's far from easy when your heart is in the right place, but your head is someone else altogether.
It's discombobulating. I wouldn't recommend it.
But that was then.
Returning to pick up where I left off on 13th December 2023, exactly one year later - with a review of TWE's 2024 Christmas Whisky - feels as good as any. Least of all, over the last 12 months, I've noted efforts to 'land grab' the "Dramble" locution for bottle promotional purposes. Most flattering - but "there can be only one".
Nevertheless, we'll start gently. I'm out of practice.
I've always been in two minds about aligning whisky releases to dates and occasions. On the one hand there's an in-build audience, who are never more eager to sate their capitalistic tendencies than at Christmas. But on the other - once the pounds have been piled on, and the decorations have come down - the producer could well be left with a pile of product which is now branded out of season and therefore is a tougher prospect to shift. This didn't used to be an issue...when everyone was buying everything and anything...but the feeding frenzy has passed, and the fish are simply far less hungry than they once were.
But I'd posit that is certainly the situation now. Occasion whiskies are a far riskier prospect than they once were. Indeed, perhaps nearly all whiskies currently are? However, producers cannot simply go to the Winchester and wait for all this to blow over. There is never a perfect time for anything.
Over the years, I've written at length on The Dramble about the perceptions of what a 'Christmas whisky' actually is - the associated flavours, styles, cask components and of course, the people that surround (and largely to my mind make) the occasion. Some bottles play directly into those in-built notions - others side-step traditions to offer something unexpected, but nevertheless still delicious. The Whisky Exchange's Good Old Fashioned Christmas Whisky 2024 steers very much into the former camp.
It is composed of both sherry butts and hogsheads filled in 2008 at an undisclosed Speyside distillery, which have been bottled at 15 years of age. It is described as exploring "the links between flavour and memory" - which, so long as we avoid the mental scars of my mother's over-abundantly clove-studded ham, sounds like a perfect ghost of Christmas past. The release is available directly from TWE for £79.95 - just in time to be added to your annual celebration of gluttony.
It's discombobulating. I wouldn't recommend it.
But that was then.
Returning to pick up where I left off on 13th December 2023, exactly one year later - with a review of TWE's 2024 Christmas Whisky - feels as good as any. Least of all, over the last 12 months, I've noted efforts to 'land grab' the "Dramble" locution for bottle promotional purposes. Most flattering - but "there can be only one".
Nevertheless, we'll start gently. I'm out of practice.
I've always been in two minds about aligning whisky releases to dates and occasions. On the one hand there's an in-build audience, who are never more eager to sate their capitalistic tendencies than at Christmas. But on the other - once the pounds have been piled on, and the decorations have come down - the producer could well be left with a pile of product which is now branded out of season and therefore is a tougher prospect to shift. This didn't used to be an issue...when everyone was buying everything and anything...but the feeding frenzy has passed, and the fish are simply far less hungry than they once were.
But I'd posit that is certainly the situation now. Occasion whiskies are a far riskier prospect than they once were. Indeed, perhaps nearly all whiskies currently are? However, producers cannot simply go to the Winchester and wait for all this to blow over. There is never a perfect time for anything.
Over the years, I've written at length on The Dramble about the perceptions of what a 'Christmas whisky' actually is - the associated flavours, styles, cask components and of course, the people that surround (and largely to my mind make) the occasion. Some bottles play directly into those in-built notions - others side-step traditions to offer something unexpected, but nevertheless still delicious. The Whisky Exchange's Good Old Fashioned Christmas Whisky 2024 steers very much into the former camp.
It is composed of both sherry butts and hogsheads filled in 2008 at an undisclosed Speyside distillery, which have been bottled at 15 years of age. It is described as exploring "the links between flavour and memory" - which, so long as we avoid the mental scars of my mother's over-abundantly clove-studded ham, sounds like a perfect ghost of Christmas past. The release is available directly from TWE for £79.95 - just in time to be added to your annual celebration of gluttony.
Nose: Robust, but not overwhelming sherry - reduced, syrupy berries, plump sultanas and an icing sugar and marzipan quality. Deeper - balsamic cherries, gingerbread men and cherry throat lozenges. Water dampens down the vivid fruitiness, instead unlocking pastry-esque notes of apple strudel and bourbon biscuits. Better without, but nevertheless, it has something new to say once reduced.
Taste: Opening on sweetness with toffee cups and zingy, sugared berry fruits, before heading into piquant spices - prominent ginger and touches of supporting pepper. The development shows off a near perfect ABV, with clinging chocolate and chopped walnuts giving way to persistently textural dried fruits and cask char. Again, dilution is quite transformative - sponge cake, fruit cake and a reduction in nascent spices. This is coupled with a darker sherry-tone of stewed fruits and souring oak.
Finish: Medium and spice forward - ginger and cinnamon lingering alongside fading, but still bright sherry fruits.
A smorgasbord of immediately recognisable Christmas-y flavour tropes all derived from well-integrated, but never overwrought sherry cask maturation. What impresses me most here is the breadth of sherried influence, as opposed to its depth. Maintaining the liveliness of a sherry cask composition isn't easy - there's often a tendency for things to move away from leafiness and into the realm where the underlying spirit is all but lost. That is not the case here - the cask influence is spot on, delivering an abundance of impact, but without any of the swampiness that sees all too many sherry-led whiskies disappear into themselves. In summary - perhaps more newer fashioned than old, but nevertheless, this is most certainly a good Christmas whisky.
Review sample provided by The Whisky Exchange.
Score: 87/100
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