I’ve been going through some samples to get them out of the way and stop them from taking up valuable shelf space. There’s still quite a few to go, as in, a hundred or more.

This one was bought some years ago with the idea of comparing it to the then recent slew of 1982 bottlings of Inchgower. Just see how age influences that dram and which flavors derived from the spirit and which from the cask.

What seemed like a good idea at the time was long forgotten or at least moved far down on the list of priorities. So much so that it took me until yesterday to try it.

On a side note, I haven’t tried that many Flora & Fauna bottlings in my whisky ‘career’ as some call it. I once owned a bottle of the excellent Rosebank 12 year old, and I’ve probably tried some others but not in a way that I remember them overly fondly (except that Rosebank, and the Mortlach). The series was finished just before I got into whisky, so prices were already rising slightly for some bottlings, others were gone.

Sniff:
There’s quite some alcohol on the nose with a hint of oak. It’s rather rich with apple, peach and vanilla. Some of those banana candies too.

Sip:
Oak and banana candy. Quite light with hints of vanilla, slightly chemical notes, oak, peach and wild peach too. Apple notes as well.

Swallow:
It’s sweet and more of the same from the palate.

A quite short review so far. But there’s one more thing. When I was tasting the older 1982 ones, and I found this similar flavor in some old Clynelishes and in that Imperial that was in the Blind Tasting Competition, there was one flavor I couldn’t pin down.

I’m not sure where it comes from, but I do know that I love it. I found it in all the bottlings mentioned earlier but have no clue how to describe it. I guess a combination of resin, beeswax, old leather and fresh oak would be best. But that’s not entirely it either.

It’s in this bottling too, but not a very high level of it, but it makes an otherwise rather uninteresting bottling slightly more appealing. Still, in this case, it doesn’t really save the whisky.

What it boils down to is that this is an okay dram. It’s well priced too at some € 50 at Master of Malt. Still, I’m not inclined to put it on my wishlist anytime soon. Or at all. Having said that, if my sample would’ve been a bottle I’d still drink it, although finishing 700ml of it might take a while.

Inchgower 14, 43%, Flora & Fauna. Available at Master of Malt