.tullibardine - 1993 - rum finish

Every now and again we speak to other whisky enthusiasts about our favourite hobby, which more often than not results in exchanging samples of purchased bottles. This one time, at bandcamp Maltstock we spoke to Jock Shaw, a professional whisky enthusiast, who at some point ran away to his car and upon coming back to us, gave a threesome of samples, one of which was this...

??% abv, €40*, cask sample, single malt, non-chill filtered, natural colour

Nose: sweet, sugar, honey, earthy, mushrooms, autumn leaves, lapsang soushong tea, cardamom

Palate: sweet, treacle, spicy, white pepper (without water), fresh malt, vanilla, green tea, creamy, butter

Finish: semi-dry, slight bitter, tannins, strong green tea, long
Mark: +++++ 

Conclusion: a tough one. Not one I would favour over many other whiskies, but she is something different and not what I expected at first. Many ex-rum cask finished whiskies tend to get overly sweet and completely overpower the whisky, but in this case, the whisky itself is still there. I am not really sure for what period the whisky has been in the ex-rum cask, but I can imagine that this was only a month or two. All in all, she might be a sweet seventeen, but she does not show her age very well and might be confused for a dram much younger, from which I gather she might have been in a not so very active second or third fill ex-Bourbon cask for the first sixteen years.

More info: distilled in 1993, finished in ex-rum cask# 15145 and drafted into a sample on 27-7-2010

* the price and picture are from the in 2011 released rum finish expression, distilled in the same year, that was bottled on 46% abv. after having matured in an ex-rum-cask for twelve months. We do not have much information about the sample itself, other then what was on the label.