Whisky : Craigellachie 8 Year SMWS 44.116 “Pirate ship in a storm”

Distillery : Craigellachie

Country/Region : Scotland/Speyside

ABV : 68.2%

Cask : 2nd Fill Oloroso Butt

Age : 8 Years (Distilled 20 April 2011)

Nose : Funky assault on the senses— boiled eggs, burnt coffee, stomach bile, and furrowed eye brows all come to mind.  More pleasant notes of an extinguished candle wick or, as a friend described it, “burnt rubber after throwing on the e-break to drift a hairpin turn.”  Burnt rubber does come to mind along with molasses, baking chocolate, and lacquered antique furniture.

Palate : Thick and oily with a mild dryness.  Sun cured coffee beans, roasted espresso, and honey roasted peanuts.  Hints of minerals, dried fish, a tire fire, and bitter cacao beans all come through.  One taster reckoned it tasted of Wildfire and the destruction of King’s Landing from Game of Thrones.

Finish : Lingering rubber pencil erasers and salty dried fish.

Score : 6

Mental Image : Pet Dragon, Portable BBQ

Something Similar : Kilkerran 8Y ’19 Ed. (Similar coffee/cacao, fainter burnt rubber, less funky)

Something Worse : Amrut Aatma ’19 US Ed. (Similar burnt rubber smoke, nuttiness, more tropical fruit)

Something Worse : Bowmore “Darkest” 15Y (Similar tire fire/coffee, thinner body, more candy)

Notes : This will burn the taste buds right off your tongue with an intensely flammable and disinfecting 68.2% abv.  The notes above are a mix of tasting it with water and without as, generally speaking, the flavor profile stayed the same, though a few drops of water definitely pushed some of the burnt rubber notes to the background and accentuated the oily coffee notes.  

Despite an incredibly heavy cask influence this still had some of the classic mineral and meaty characteristics of Craigellachie which at times came off as salted or cured fish against the richness of the Oloroso butt.  This dram was not for everyone and I simultaneously loved it and never wanted to have it again… which is also why it has taken me about six months since our local virtual tasting event to get around to retasting it and typing up a review.  Within our group opinions were divided between those who loved the battle axe of flavor that came through and those who found the funk a bit too much.