With my order going horribly wrong last year, for Cadenhead and Springbank’s Online Tasting Week, I decided to skip this one, especially since Brexit had already happened too.

Of course, most whiskies were probably awesome and very reasonably priced, because that is what Cadenhead does. Most of them I’ve already forgotten after skimming the email about it though. Except this one.

This blended malt is called Anomaly, because it’s green. And by green it’s not a light bourbon cask that looks a tad green in the right light, but actual, slightly muddy and mossy green. Like ‘water from a fishtank in some post-apocalyptic movie with a decaying goldfish in it’-green.

Initially it sold for some £ 75 and quickly ramped up to € 175 on the secondary market, and even that bottle has sold by now. I doubted about buying it, until I found a sample available online and bought that instead.

Sniff:
It’s very woody with ‘green’ oak. The kind that leaves your hands green if you would touch the trunk. Pickled walnuts, somehow, with a slightly moldy hint of vegetables. Later on I get a scent of those big green plums.

Sip:
The palate packs a bit more punch that the 49% ABV suggested. A sharp oakiness with a touch of vinegar. Those pickled walnuts again. Walnut shells too, lots of wood, green apples and green plums.

Swallow:
The finish is somehow very old fashioned. Very oak driven again with hints of green malt on top of that. Quite a bit more barley notes than before, with some apples and a tiny bitter note.

So, contrary to what you might think after reading the tasting notes, this is actually a very good whisky. It’s something quite different than what you’d normally encounter, but it sure is tasty. Lots of oak and other kinds of green notes, plums, apples, moss, unmalted barley, and so on. I very much enjoyed it, to be honest.

88/100