A week ago I got a letter from Ben of Master of Malt (the brain behind many great whisky things that are going on at MoM) asking me for my help in tasting two different springbank samples. They are looking to bottle a single cask, and they got some nice samples from 2 such casks they wanted to share and let a few whisky geeks/ bloggers to try and say what they think should be bottled. All the information they divulged was that they were both 1993 casks, and only one can be bottled because of certain machinations of the bottling deal. Thanks to the ever so sluggish Israeli mail, it took those babies a further week to get here, and when I got hold of them yesterday I was ready and able for the mission. The sacrifices we do for whisky 😀 . I cant’ complain. Springbank with their maritime, salty profile with a wee bit of sherry added is something of beauty, and I was really looking forward to tasting those wee samples.
Cask 482 , ABV% ? , vintage 1993
Nose: Quite sa
lty, mineral, coastal with cereal bowl, burnt toast crust, ginger, sea spray, n short: eating a burnt toast with marmite spread while taking a wee walk down the beach on a winter day (or a summer day, in Scotland, they are very similar, eh?).
Palate: starting really powerful with a lot of salty notes, bitter wood, chocolate, cereal and malt, then getting a bit sweeter, almost like sucking on a wood stick covered with salt. some sugary notes come into mind only later but playing a hide and seek game with the salt
Finish: sugar candy, with hints of sprinkled salt, licorice stick.
Nice , very coastal. almost no smoke, and no peat whatsoever.
Cask 129 ,. ABV% ? , vintage 1993
Nose: We’re off to sherry land here, but not big monstrous sherry, more like a fino, inhibited sherry, and by the color of it , it’s not a first fill sherry, but a cask that has seen some whisky before. Getting more fruity notes, with peach, and nectarine sort of, with the trademark salty, a bit mineraly Springers are well known for.also something i can’t put my finger on , but it’s twisted sort of vanilla.
Palate: OH MAMA. alcohol bite galore, this is massive. ABV% galore, chilly attack on first sip then peppery, sweet molasses, fruit and chilly combined, after a few seconds, lovely sherry and fudge, bordering on the exotic, sprinkle the odd grain of Atlantic salt on all, and wrap all with a warm sugary rum kind of thing. lovely winter sip. just lovely!
Finish: Long long, warming, sweet, fruity, sherry , with cocoa beans and coffee at the very end. i dig this finish very very much.
So, which one do i prefer? on the one side, the first is classic springbank, with the salt, tasted bread, and seabreeze, with not sherry. On the other hand I am a sherry lover, and the second one is just perfect for the winter (winter is coming, remember?).
So my pick is cask 129 by only a short margin, but yea. It’s less a springbank than 482, but it’s damn delicious, and more accessible to most.
Let’s see which one gets bottled in the end, wither way you are in for a treat when they come out. Both crackers, very different, but crackers.
Many thanks to the folks at Mom (Cat,Ben) for the samples and for sharing the happiness of those two casks with me.
FYI They both got bottled