“Birthdays United”… Right.

Anyway, very old grain whisky. It’s one of those things that I used to be very thrilled about a decade ago, but that has waned quite a bit. Not necessarily because it’s not good, but mostly because I don’t find it interesting.

Why, you ask? Well, first of all, all you get it cask notes. And in a way that’s a good thing because young grain whisky tends to be not very good (yes, there are exceptions). And because it is distilled to around 94% ABV there’s virtually no distillery character to be found. So, whether this comes from Invergordon or North British or Strathclyde barely matters.

Of course, if you want to make statements like that, you have to reconfirm that opinion every now and then. Maybe my palate has changed, maybe this is one of the exceptions to the rule.

Also, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying this style of whisky isn’t ‘good’. I am saying I (personally) find it not very interesting.

Sniff:
Quite a lot of vanilla, with some sea breeze crispness. A very modern aroma with a lot of cask influence compared to the spirit. Unripe banana and baked apple. Pastry cream and sugary pastry.

Sip:
The arrival is a bit thin and, again, leans very heavily on the vanilla and a candy-like sweetness. Wine gums (the white/yellow ones), a chemical sweetness. Banana and baked apple, puff pastry with egg-wash and sugar.

Swallow:
The finish is largely the same as the palate but has a bit of a white pepper and copper bite to it. Mostly sweet and candy like.

A very typical one for the age bracket it’s in. Rather sweet, almost nothing to be found that cannot be traced back to the cask it matured in. Still, it’s rather drinkable and pretty decent, but it confirms the rule that I don’t find them overly interesting.

86/100