A few weeks ago Whiskybase announced that they had a private cask of Daftmill in the works. The caveat was that you had to ‘prove’ that you would open yours instead of seeing it as an investment whisky.

To do that, they wanted you to upload a selfie with your opened bottle of any previous Daftmill that came out. Of course, with all the bottle-sharing that’s happening, my previous bottle was long gone.

Luckily they weren’t too strict and me having a blog post with it, and a picture of the empty bottle (without me in the picture) was enough. I didn’t have to buy one in the two minutes the rest of the cask was available. Literally two minutes, by the way, until what wasn’t allocated to selfie-providing people sold out.

Of course, any future proof had to be recorded, so this happened:

In the end, with all sharing of the Daftmill, this bottle is already empty as well, and in the bin. Time for a review, I’d say.

Sniff:
Herbaceous and floral, but with quite a lot of vanilla behind it. Hints of dried wildflowers and straw, quite meadow-y. But, with a bit of a dessert pastry like sweetness. The sweetness does dissipate a little with a few minutes time. Fresh oak, wet grass, slightly floral notes with a whiff of black pepper remain.

Sip:
The palate is rather unique with pastry and vanilla, but not too much of the sweetness that typically goes with it. Grass, ferns, pine needles, vanilla, fresh oak. Very Lowlands-like. A certain austerity, in a way.

Swallow:
The finish is quite dry, with more austere notes than before. Baked apple, ferns, fresh oak. Some iron, even. Still not much sweetness, and that’s quite nice.

So, this whisky has the good things going on from an old fashioned Lowlands whisky. It’s not unlike some Rosebanks I had some years ago. On the other hand it’s rather modern with a lot of cask influence and therefore vanilla. That does take it down a notch. Luckily, there’s not too much sweetness.

88/100

Since it sold out in minutes people are trying to make some money off the bottles that are still closed, and it’s currently available in the Whiskybase Marketplace for € 600. Expensive, but a fair bit lower than some idiot trying his hardest to get through winter on the back of one bottle…