Teaninich is one of the work horse distilleries of Diageo, situated in Alness where I happened to reside for a couple of days at the end of October. Didn’t go to the distillery though, since they don’t receive visitors and the schedule was pretty action-packed without all kind of extra-curricular outings.

I got my hands on a sample of this after trying one of Michiel Wigman’s earlier bottlings from the same bottling-year. That sat at a significantly lower ABV, although all the other specs were pretty much the same.

I always like to compare things, and even though it doesn’t seem like with a two year gap between reviews, the actual notes were not written that far apart… Something about going through the back-log of tasting notes when you’re trying to get over a massive cold…

Sniff:
Vanilla custard and crumbly pastry, thick and creamy. A bit of hay and dry leaves, quite autumnal. Very dry, behind all the richness.

Sip:
It’s not too sharp on the arrival, and the richness helps a bit there too. Mostly focused on the vanilla crumble and custard. Baked apples with cinnamon, autumn leaves, some oak and dried coconut flakes too.

Swallow:
The finish is a bit sharper than expected, and does focus even more on the vanilla. Lots of custard, crumble pastry, pastry cream, that kind of stuff. The other notes barely show up.

A fairly straight forward bourbon cask matured whisky. Well made and good, but also a little bit generic. The bourbon cask gave the spirit a massive hit of vanilla and while it doesn’t make the whisky bad (at all) it does take away from the distillery character.

So, a good dram, but too much vanilla to really be noteworthy. It could just as well have been Glenmorangie or many of the other Scottish distilleries…

87/100