Nose:
A touch of cream sherry, coffee essence, raspberry gummies, red apple skins, and
overripe halved strawberries. Staying on the produce mild tropical fruits begin
to surface - star fruit and Vietnamese dried fruit chips. However, although the
aforementioned aromas are clearly detectable, overall it is quite light and
perhaps a tad watery on the nose. Like many bottlings out there this would have
benefited being bottled at a slightly higher strength, and it is hard to detect
that this is a 15 year old whisky (containing other parcels of Karuizawa up to 31 years of age). With oxidization, in my opinion, it becomes
much bolder. This is where things begin to happen…raspberry vinegar dressing, Redskins lollies (raspberry-flavoured
chewy confectionary), and honey powder.
Taste:
As with the nose it could be said that the mouth feel is equally light.
Nevertheless enjoyable with a subtle tease of smoke, liquorice, and granola
with dried strawberries. Slight hint of concentrated Ribena fruit syrup. A touch of honey with a grassy note. Can
become prickly on the tongue.
Finish:
The tease of smoke and rubber continues to caress your tongue. It is slightly metallic and/or
minnerally. Grassy. The finale is short coming however.
Comment:
Sufficient time in the glass makes this much more rewarding – if you can be
patient. I
truly love the essence of this of bottle design, simple yes, but savvy. It
retains the original ethical beauty of the brand - if there is such a thing. The design of the bottle above superseded the square-dimple type. Well worth the original RRP if you can still find it at that (regardless of the
light aromas and palate), otherwise I struggle to understand the prices paid on
the secondary market today.
Follow up: At the half way mark this bottle has began to take a shine on me. It has become a bit more complex and generally overall a lot more satisfying. In short it has began to represent the distillery's house style. My daily dram that I suspect will be missed when emptied.
