A year and four days ago Tom wrote about the first tasting with the Springbank Stallions in a wintry Campbeltown. This time, the tasting continues with part two, again in Campbeltown in January.

Some quick fire tasting notes to round off his series of guest posts, since Tom has turned from collaborator to competitor for the attention of the various readers of whisky blogs. He has started his own blog over at Whisky Odyssey.

So, this will mean this will be his second-to-last contribution to the blog. I guess Tom already forgot but I still have tasting note flagged in my mailbox that I never got around to posting. Haha!

One group of crazy whisky geeks and ALL the Springbank Society bottles ever made. Yeah, you can not do that in one flight. So after the first debauchery last year, we continued in 2024 with another big undertaking.

A contrast with the previous year is that we don’t taste them in order or appearance. Inhouse Society Expert and host Bram van Glabbeek (you may know him as one of the WhiskyNerds) decided coupling cask types together in one flight would make for a better tasting and drinking experience. So, just like last year, here are the quick fire impressions of this mammoth tasting, based on 1,5 cl samples and interrupted by several activities including luscious food by Donald Brown, who celebrated his 60th birthday with the Stallions.

Flight 1

Hazelburn 10yo Refill Sauternes Hogsheads – 55.9%
Quite a strong beast, mostly on yellow fruits and sour notes. Very hot in alcohol. With water a tropical fruit bomb. Lovely. 82 points.

Springbank 9yo Fresh Sauternes Hogsheads – 57.1%
More woody notes and a lot more spices. Less fruity but more depth and character. The typical Campbeltown dirty side is there. Good! With water very sweet. 82 points.

Longrow 9yo Fresh Sauternes Hogsheads – 56.3%
More oily on the tongue, but it’s really harsh to enjoy neat. Not the best example of Longrow. 80 points.

Hazelburn 16yo Ruby Port – 50.8%
Not bad … for a port matured whisky. Nice and fruity but mouthfeel and finish are very dry and with lots of rubber. It is a style. You need to like it. 81 points.

Springbank 15yo Fresh Port Hogsheads – 56.2%
Much better than the Hazelburn, juicier and a bit more of pushback on the power of the port cask. Red fruit, wood spice and with water a lot of candy flavors. Lovely actually. 85 points.

Flight 2

Longrow 13yo of which 6 years in Chardonnay – 56.7%
Amazingly nice mineral nose, but the taste leaves a lot to be desired. Also, the peat is subdued. Interesting but not really good. 78 points

Springbank 15yo Jamaican Rum – 51.2%
Fizzy stuff, and quite fruity on the tongue. Somehow I never feel rum is out of place with Springbank. With water even sweeter and softer. 84 points.

Springbank 8yo Fresh Oloroso Hogsheads – 57.3%
Just delicious, fat and full of cherry, sour notes and also a burn of wood, leaning towards sulfur but kept in balance just enough. Water reveals a full throttle rubbery note. 83 points.

Springbank 8yo Fresh Sherry Butt – 57.2%
Very fragrant, dunnage warehouse, wet floor, also some sulfur on the nose this time. The taste however stays far behind on the previous one. Extremely dark chocolate. Honestly, after a while, we must conclude this is just not good. 78 points.

Longrow 14yo Fresh Sherry – 53.2%
Meaty of character, some barbecue notes. There must be something about these casks, but we are on a solid sulfur session here. The peat makes it a bit more interesting but overall these are not the best experiments for my palate. 82 points.

Flight 3

Hazelburn 11yo Fresh Bourbon Barrel – 54.5%
Fresh is the operative word here. Lots of vanilla and lots of wood spice. Very clean. Close to the regular 10 years old but on steroids. With water even more nice spices. 86 points

Springbank 5yo Fresh Bourbon – 57.1%
Crispy whisky if there ever was one. Proof that not only newcomers can release excellent young whisky. The smoke is missing though, overpowered by lots of vanilla and hot alcohol. With water however, lots of mineral qualities and dry grain. Lovely bottling this one. 84 points

Longrow 20yo Bourbon Barrels Refill – 47.9%
Another clean example but a bit too light on the peaty influence. Rather smooth on the tongue. With water the smoke gets really pronounced and swirling around on the tongue. Beautiful. 88 points

Springbank 28yo Sherry Hogshead, Bourbon Barrel, Butt, Rum – 48.2%
This is of course a gigantic treat to drink and sniff and enjoy. Lots of cinnamon, milk chocolate and light coffee. The taste is the same, on praline and mocha. Also some meaty influences like ham (with melon) and to confuse some more: lychee. In short: this vatting keeps playing wonderous tricks on you. 91 points

Flight 4

Hazelburn 11yo Re-charred Bourbon Hogshead – 54.2%
Back to a fruity character and truly tropical taste, with lots of pineapple juice and some peaches for good measure. 88 points

Springbank 18yo Re-charred Sherry Butts – 58.9%
Leathery and deep mahogany. Hot on the tongue with this his high abv but beautiful in coffee and chocolate notes. Some dry leathery notes. Really good stuff. Leaning to a meaty character. 86 points

Longrow 11yo Refill Re-charred Butts – 59.9%
Rather one-dimensional on smoke and meaty notes. You can binge this during your summer barbecue. Straight in your face good stuff. Water adds more complexity on coastal notes. 88 points

Hazelburn 18yo Refill Sherry Butt – 54.4%
Has the same look and feel as the 11 yo, so lots of fruit but with a red fruit influence of the sherry. Not at all overpowered and this works like a charm. Not necessarily better but equally good stuff. Adding some water actually pushes it to great heights. A fruity explosion. 90 points

Springbank 14yo Refill Sherry Butt Local Barley – 57.8%
Local barley this time and quite malty indeed. The sherry plays secondary fiddle and invokes this barbecue feel again, but not from peat and smoke but more in a meaty note. As you can imagine this is an intense final flight and this finishes it off quite rightly. 90 points

Bye Tom!