Tasting the new Speyburn 25 year old (and the 10 year old as bonus)

Spey25years-label3It’s Speyburn time again. 3 weeks ago on September 6th another twitter tasting took place, this time organized by Lukasz of Alembic Comms (who’s doing the magic stuff for inverhouse). The original date of the tasting was a few weeks before that, but they had to reschedule. I really wanted to participate, but I was flying to MaltStock the day after (or just a few hours after the tweetup), and since my plane took off at 0600 am I was due at the airport fairly early Friday morning, and wanted to grab a few hours of sleep before I was to land on NL ground, as I knew the first day at MS would be hectic. Maltstock was lovely, and when I came back, I sat down with those wee samples and did a private twasting of my own. and here are my notes.

Speyburn 10 yo, 40% ABV, £23Speyburn 10

The 10 year old is a nice malt, that is well priced (especially in the USA, where I know it costs as low as $20…) but is not really popular where I come from. It’s pretty basic and nice for that price, and I’ve had it on a few occasions (as well as in the distillery when visiting last year). It was nice to revisit it, and take proper notes this time.

Nose: Sweet malty, and lemon zest, with warm wood, and spice, followed by pear drops

Palate: malt, wood spice, a bit of bitter wood, zest, and sugar.

Finish : medium, malty, with vanilla and wood.

A Nice basic dram, nothing to get excited about, but for that price, it’s a good BFYB.

Score: 79/100

Speyburn 25 , 46% ABV , £240

Speyburn25Nose: starts with quite some wood. Very fragrant and older. Then to sweet sugars , a lot of spices as in all spice. Cinnamon , lovely play on the sweet fruit vs. spice and stewed fruit ( apple, pear, peaches) in honey. Great nose.

Palate: starts spicy with ginger, pepper, then gets sweeter and fruitier with the fruit compote and cinnamon and honey nectar. The peaches from the nose are all baked and caramely. Good!

Finish; wood. Mint. Spice. Fruity. Spicy.

 

A wonderful whisky, even better than the old 25 ‘solera’ reserve I’ve tried before. very good, and at only 46%, very impressive. If the pricing for this one is right and not over the top, then we’ve got a little winner here. Lovely lovely. bring them on Speyburn, you can do it, we know that now.

Score: 91/100

Official samples provided by Alembic Comms

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