A little while I wanted a rather specific whisky that wasn’t available in ‘regular’ shops anymore. But, according to Whiskybase there was this shop in The Netherlands that still had it. It was called ‘Whisky Exclusive‘.

In a way, that is exactly what they do. The deal in exclusive whiskies and often they are the only point where a certain bottle is available. A bit like MustHaveMalts works.

Of course, with things that are technically sold out except at those shops, you pay a little extra and then it’s up to you whether you want to do that or not.

In this case (I think I bought a high-scoring Balblair which I still have to try) I wanted to do that, and a few days later a parcel arrived at my doorstep. Carefully wrapped with lots of bubble-wrap and those foam flakes.

Interestingly when I went to chuck out the box and the wrappings, something heavy clunked into the bin. It was a, luckily carefully packed, sample of this Edradour and I managed to dig it out again…

Normally I avoid Edradour based on results from the past, although it seems they’re getting their distilling act together and the quality of both Edradour and Ballechin (peated Edradour) is improving over the last couple of years. Let’s see where this one sits.

Sniff:
A strange combination of sherry fruits and vanilla to begin with. It’s a sherry trifle like thing that’s going on. The fruits are a bit like tinned fruit cocktail. Minor notes of oak and something creamy. In combination with the vanilla that only enforces the sherry trifle notes.

Sip:
A bit more dry than expected, with more fruit and a bit better balance. As in, the fruit is a bit more like dried fruit instead of fruit cocktail. Still pretty sweet with some custard-like hints. Oak, some matches, an almond note too.

Swallow:
The finish brings a bit more matches / sulphur, but continues with the fruit and custard. It’s quite long and also brings that almond note towards the end.

I’m not sure what it is with Edradour. I wouldn’t have guessed the distillery blind, since things have gotten better over the years, but it still is not a very good distillery in my book (it’ll be some time before that reputation will improve). There’s always this off-note that I find difficult to handle.

In this case there’s some sulphur and while I can handle a bit of sulphur, the rest is a bit too generic to offset it.

83/100

Available at Whisky Exclusive for € 73. Thanks for the sample, much obliged!