Whisky : Copperworks 3 Year SMWS 143.1 “Sea Buckthorn tea time”

Country/Region : United States

ABV : 60.%

Cask : New American Oak, #2 Char

Age : 3 Years (Distilled 14 Mar. 2016)

Nose : Fruity and herbal with notes of tea and a kiss of salt.  Unripened tropical fruits: dragonfruit, rambutan, and mangosteens paired with sweet wildflower honey and waxy honeycomb.  Herbal and wood notes come through with sun-dried bamboo poles, dried leaves, and rose tea.

Palate : Thick and oily with a resinous astringency.  Loads of wood sugars come through with fresh unconcentrated maple syrup, cinnamon, and licorice.  Fruity notes slide in as almond, sweet and tart wolf-berry, black vinegar, dragonfruit, and kaya— a coconut jam/preserve.  A few drops of water brought out herbal notes of sweet tea and honey.

Finish : Lingering notes of sweet honey and tangy fruit.

Score : 6

Mental Image : Kaya Toast Hawker Stall

Something Better : Arran 16Y 1998 R&BT (similar tropical fruits, coconut, tea, more pastries)

Something Similar : Blair Athol 8Y SMWS 68.28 (similar wolf/goji berry & tart/sweet contrast)

Notes :  A new distillery for SMWS and another great American single malt!  I had no idea this distillery existed and I regret not stopping by when the wife and I were in Seattle a few months before Covid-19 took hold and made travel more difficult and less desirable.  We passed right by the distillery several times, so we definitely missed out on a chance to try some of the single malt that Westland’s not-so-distant neighbors produce.

This was a really interesting blend of herbal and fruity malt notes with a healthy heap of woody sugar and tannins.  Copperworks does most of their distilling with six-row Alba barley and allows for incredibly long fermentation times, 9-13 days, compared to 2-4 days for many single malt producers in Scotland.  The long fermentation time brought out really interesting and subtle fruit notes and this was a really interesting bottle to come back to over and over.  While the youthfulness of the spirit did shine through in some rough edges, the amount of complexity in this made it an absolute delight and hard to imagine it was only three years old.

The overall flavor profile was wild and every time I can back for another glass I found different flavor notes coming to the fore.  There were some constants though, fruits and honey on the nose and initial palate and a remarkable tart-sweetness, almost like cranberries, that developed over time.  The rest of the notes came and went with different hits of tea, vegetation, or wood at different sessions.  Water helped bring some of the tannins in line and really open up more of the herbal fruity tea notes, but this drank wonderfully at cask strength as well.

This was delightful.  I will definitely be on the look out for future releases and, assuming we can ever get back to Seattle, we will definitely stop by the distillery next time.