It doesn’t take great detective skills to sleuth out the best in single cask bottlings!  Look no further than the April Outturn.  For full tasting notes please visit http://www.smws.ca/ but for now be tempted by the bottle notes below.

Happy sleuthing!

Cask No. 48.43  Pepper crop-dusted over orchards

12 years old; 1st fill barrel; 55.5%; Spicy & sweet

The nose starts with tickling pepper and sawdust; then come blackcurrant chews, tinned pineapple, orange jelly and sun-kissed orchard fruits. The palate’s pepper, nutmeg and chili tingle balances honey, toffee, fruit pastilles, ice lolly sticks and hints of leather and tea.

Cask No. 26.100  Galactic root canal treatment

9 years old; 1st fill barrel; 56.5%; Young & spritely

The nose shifts from white pepper, pine and varnish to lemon candles, liquorice, sherbet and old-fashioned rucksacks; milk bottle sweets and laundry later. The neat palate is hot and fierce, but sweetens with water to Haribos gummies, lemon barley water and popcorn.

Cask No. 9.84  Playing ‘Sea Battle’ in the garden

25 years old; refill sherry butt; 55.6%; Juicy, oak & vanilla

You find yourself either on a gun deck of an old wood-hulled warship with gunpowder, spent cartridge and ash or peacefully tending your herb garden and then taking a break on a cedar deck to enjoy waffles with runny vanilla custard playing ‘Sea Battle’.

Cask No. 132.6  Nite Nurse nipped by piranhas

12 years old; refill sherry butt; 63%; Deep, rich & dried fruits

The complex nose combines salted caramel, barley sugars and ginger snaps with laurel hedges, lacquered wood, hazelnuts, cherries and cigarette packets (more herbal with water). The palate mingles dark chocolate and fig rolls with orange peel, perfume and warm nipping spices.

Cask No. 3.217  A delicatessen shopping basket

16 years old; refill butt; 55.6%; Lightly peated

A feast of prosciutto ham, sundried tomatoes, sushi and brown sauce. Leather jackets in canvas bags with tobacco. German peppered ham? A delicious foodie dram in a warm plastic box. A blast of tar, sea spray, and wet burlap rope.

Cask No. 53.190  A fishing village up whisky cove

17 years old; refill hogshead; 56.8%; Peated

The nose evokes fishing villages – boat sheds, smoke houses, tarry ropes, lobster pots and sea-food barbecues; swimming pools, new tires and oysters later. The palate is masculine and tongue-roasting – citric smoke, driftwood, brine, treacle, leather, vanilla, honey-roast pork and chili.

Cask No. 29.140  Juicy, salty and sooty

18 years old; refill barrel; 60.2%; Heavily peated

Carbolic and Coal Tar soap, then Brazil, Monkey and pine nuts in a garden shed with a lawnmower. The taste very sweet, salty and sooty, with a savoury edge. More medicinal with water but still full on.

http://www.smws.ca/