This bottling is the newest permanent addition to the distillery’s core range and consists a vatting of 80% sherry casks and 20% bourbon barrels which has been bottled at 46% without colouring or chill-filtering. Of the 7,800 bottles produced for the world wide market, a grand total of 180 were allocated to the Canadian Province of Alberta (the remainder of Canada was out of luck). The nose reveals fruit, raisins, Christmas cake and is actually not as assertive as one would expect from an abundance of sherry casks used in the vatting. Some slight smokiness with some very light wood notes. A slight tinge of furniture polish perhaps? Very pleasant. The taste is sweet and luxurious, rich and slightly creamy cooked dark fruits (plums) fruit tart and apricot. The smoke is much more evident than on the nose but not over whelming; also the taste is quite dry layered with toffee and wood notes. It’s very pleasant and whatever amount is in your glass the inclination is to add more. The finish is quite long; at first there are lots of sweet fruit components but after a short time you’re left with a lot of dryness and wood notes. Exceptional.

 C$150

 Score 88 Points

Visit http://www.springbankwhisky.com/ for further details.