I might be a bit of a snob, but when I’m at a whisky festival, I veer towards the exclusive stuff. Random 9 year old whiskies I generally skip. Not just at festival but also in shops.

Why? These can be good, right? Yes. But with whisky’s popularity of whisky, everyone and their brother is releasing single cask whisky and there’s just too much generic-ness going on. Too many things that should have gone into a blend and not have been bottled as a single cask release.

But, in early 2019 I was at the Hielander whisky festival at Kintra’s stand, and I wanted to try some of their recent releases. This one was there. There were more exclusive ones but some were already poured into the glasses of my in-laws. We tend to share.

This one ended up in my glass. It had been less than a year since I was at the distillery, so there was a bit of Glen Scotia fanboy-ism going on too.

As you might have guessed by now, I was very positively surprised by this, and I ended up buying a bottle. I semi-recently emptied it and finally wrote tasting notes.

Sniff:
Straw and barley, with yellow fruits. Pineapple, apple, fresh and dried. Some oak and a hint of vanilla too. Slightly coastal.

Sip:
Slightly syrupy, fruity and coastal. Pretty fierce, with straw, marram grass and briny sea air. Salty, sweet, and strong.

Swallow:
Not overly long but lots of grassy, dry notes. Accompanied by lots of dried pineapple, and fresh apple.

This whisky does everything you expect from a coastal whisky, but adds some more fruit than I expected initially. The pineapple notes are pretty tasty, and it combines rather well with the salinity of the distillate.

It took me a while to go through the bottle, but when I finally got into it, I got through the last half-or-so pretty fast. Also, I took it with me on holiday to Brittany last summer, and it was nice and summery enough to get me through a few evenings!

87/100

Glen Scotia 2008-2018, 9yo, cask 369, 55.9%, Kintra Whisky. Available for € 73 at Whiskysite.nl