After last month’s Whisky round table which dealt with Single Casks, I decided to taste some SMWS bottlings. I’m sure you all heard and know the SMWS, their mission, and their unique naming conventions and titles for their single cask bottlings. All bottlings by the SMWS are single casks, and some are extremely interesting. So, a Macallan with a very promising title “Chocolate box at Christmas” , how can we go wrong with this one?
SMWS 24.104 ,“Chocolate box at Christmas” , 18yo 1st fill sherry butt 612 bottles , 56.9% ABV (out of stock)
Nose: Chocolate coated nuts,sultanas, plenty of sweet sherry notes of dried fruit : Sultanas, Prunes , Some wood varnish, ending on dark chocolate, and spices (cloves,cinnamon) and vanilla flavoured sugar. Sweet,luscious and delicious. if the palate is that good, it’s going to be a love story!
Palate: Big impact on the tongue, courtesy of the high ABV. starting on burnt sugar, then off to pepper, then honeyed nectar, then off to chocolate covered fruit compote with apricots,sultanas,prunes, all mixed with golden syrup. Sweet, sweet and spicy stuff. with water: gets tad more woody, sweeter, with some additional chocolaty flavours.
Finish : dried fruit salad, with a long prune finish, some nutty notes as well.A lovely combination of sweet honey notes, dark chocolate, nuts and pepper. complex, and well done. a great SMWS.
Score : 90/100
Thanks to MS for this lovely sample.
Mmm…first fill sherry cask, the way God intended for Macallan to be made. 🙂
Sounds great, Gal! You can have the Fine Oak expressions, and I’ll take two of this. Too bad it’s not actually available anymore…
Cheers,
Jeff
Indeed. Nothing like a good old macallan sherry 1st fill.
fineOak is nice, but it’s not the real deal.