Whisky: Clynelish 23 Year (1995), Single Cask Nation Cask 8660

Country/Region: Scotland/Highland

ABV: 52.4%

Cask: 2nd Fill Oloroso Sherry Butt

Age: 23 Years (Distilled Sept. 1995, Bottled March 2019)

Nose: Dark fruits, cinnamon, artificial fruits and chocolate, sulfur, leather, rubber, bacon grease.

Palate: Medium-bodied, stone fruits, hints of tropical fruits, savory and sometimes sulfurous, leather, carrot cake, vegetal, chocolate, bitter black tea.

Finish: Medium-length, mildy waxy and plastic crayons, dried fruit, andbitter tea.

Score: 7 (82)

Mental Image: Plums in Boots

Narrative & Notes: Big and fruity with a pot full of dark stone fruits and cinnamon bubbling away, and a touch of artificial berry flavored Kit-kats. An unmistakable whiff of sulfur offered a savory edge to the malt with leather boots and rubber soles running into bacon grease and turnips. Medium-bodied with big juicy plums, stone fruits and a touch of tropical chico fruits with its brown sugar and pear qualities. More savory and, yes, sulfurous, elements lingered in the background with leather, spiced carrot cake, and charred root vegetables. Toward the end was a subtle earthiness, or dark chocolate, with over-steeped, bitter black tea. The finish was medium-length and mildly waxy, though more like the plastic quality of a cheap crayon than candles, alongside dried fruit and a bit of bitter tea.

I love a good comment section on whiskybase, particularly for divisive drams, and this was one of those. There were noticeably sulfurous elements to this whisky, mostly on the nose, but that was more than enough to set off the senses of some drinkers, and I do not blame them. I found the palate more straightforward, with plenty of the stone fruits, cherries, and hints of something more tropical.

This was not particularly characteristic of Clynelish; it lacked a lot of the waxiness that people look for in a mid-1990s malt, though there were hints of it. It was fairly dirty and wild for a sherry whisky, though only insofar as it waded into the shallow end of some of those funkier cask notes— this was no dive into the deep end of big earth, plastic, or hot spring notes, but they were hard to miss.