So, old books and cracker leather lay ahead of us, going by the title.

Wemyss is a bit of an oddball bottler in my book. Not in a very negative way, but I do think their blended malts get in the way of the single casks they release. It’s all nice to have a baseline of bottlings like Velvet Fig, Spice King and Smoky Shores, but I’ve never been swept away by these.

However, their single casks tend to be better than they get credit for. I have (and had) some Clynelishes, Glen Scotias and Bowmores in the past that were true stunners, but they barely show up on the radar. And when they do, they tend to not score incredibly well on Whiskybase. Strange.

Anyway, this one came from auction a year or two ago. Recently I’ve been in a ‘some bottles should be emptied’ mode and this one fell victim to that too. That’s when I get in a situation where I want to finish a bottle and pour it out, only to realize it’s a two-and-a-half dram instead of one-and-a-bit. Of course, that’s the stuff that happens when you think to have a nightcap before getting some Zs.

A great time to sit down quietly with the rest of the house being silent. A great time to do some reading, or (more likely due to tiredness) some Youtubing…

Sniff:
Old books, yeasty sherry, barley and oak. There’s dried orange in the background. A whiff of hessian and some funky Glen Scotia notes. All are rather gentle, and restrained, in a good way.

Sip:
A gentle palate, a dry note that wasn’t there before. Leather and old books. Yeasty sherry, the oloroso kind (as opposed to the sweeter styles). Quite a lot of flavours, with dried orange, old barley, oak.

Swallow:
The finish keeps the dry note but loses the orange. A bit more one dimensional. Barley, funkiness, sherry.

Well, it lives up to its ‘Leather Bound Ledger’ name, so that’s something. With these whiskies I often realize it doesn’t have to be cask strength all the time. These 46% bottlings can be so gorgeous, and this one is no exception. Lovely sherry notes, a very old style of whisky, this!

89/100