With the Thompson Brothers opening up a bottle shop in Dornoch, I am really hoping things pan out and I am able to visit the place at the end of October. A small trip to that part of Scotland is in the works. Quality beers and a bottle of whisky sounds like a good idea. Then again, when does it not?!

Anyway, with a recent batch of Thompson Brothers bottlings arriving in The Netherlands, some shares were done by me and Rowald, and I got a sample of this one. Supposedly, this is a Glen Elgin, but it doesn’t say on the label.

The whisky matured in a refill hogshead, with 2 years in a sherry cask after that.

Sniff:
It’s very fruity, but in a very strange way. Dried lime, papaya and prickly pears. On a bed of straw, because it still is (supposedly) Glen Elgin. After a while it gets a bit of a whiff of a funky note of soil and wet laundry.

Sip:
The palate is pretty strong, and sharper than I expected with 16 years of aging. Dried lime, some chemical version of lime as well. Like some cleaning product. It’s surprisingly heavy, for a dram that has a lime forward flavor profile like this.

Swallow:
The finish goes back to the artificial lemon flavor, but it less heavy than the nose was. It’s not entirely unlike washing up liquid. With straw, some barley and a whiff of oak.

There’s a note in there that I cannot pinpoint, nor do I like it. It’s a strange combination of lime and heavier, feinty things. It makes me think of dirty dishwashing water. And that’s not something I enjoy drinking all that much. The fruity notes in the beginning were nice though.

With me just having a sample, I figured I might need to sit down with this a second time. Luckily, the sample was 6cl and I could go for seconds a week or so later. Unfortunately, the whisky didn’t improve. On the contrary.

A lot of the fruity notes had diminished and the strange acidity had become more prominent. I didn’t like this one at all.

76/100