SMWS 100.11 Picnic party dram

By Barry Bradford on March 9, 2015 • ( Leave a comment )

Strathmill 15 Years Old 1998 100.11 Picnic party dram (56.3%, SMWS, Refill Bourbon Barrel, 152 Bottles, 2014)

Speyside single malt scotch whisky
56.3% ABV, £49.20
Score: 86/100

What they say:

Cask No. 100.11

The nose took us to a children’s party – wrapping paper, pineapple tarts, marzipan, fruit pastilles, raspberry jelly, custard trifle with flaked almonds; sugar mice escaped – running over varnished floorboards into the garden – flower-beds, privet hedge, apple trees, garden shed – what an adventure! If anything, the palate was even sweeter – party tables groaned under puff candy, caramel wafers, vanilla slices, fizzy sherbet sweets and marshmallows – but later, especially in the finish, we found ginger, pepper, aniseed, dandelion tea and good oaky flavours to appeal to the more adult tastes, once the children were in bed. The distillery was a corn-mill until 1891.

Drinking tip: Not really recommended for a children’s party – but maybe afterwards – or to accompany an autumn picnic.

Date Distilled: 12 October 1998 Colour: Transparent gold leaf Age: 15 years Flavour : Sweet, fruity & mellow Cask Type: Refill ex-bourbon barrel Whisky Region: Speyside Deveron

Outturn: 152 bottles

What I say:

Released in the SMWS November outturn I had a brief sample of this dram in the pre-outturn tasting and decided immediately I would like to buy a bottle. Only cask No. 11 bottled from Strathmill (SMWS distillery #100) a distillery I have sampled only once or twice before with the “Official” bottling Strathmill 12 Years Old Flora and Fauna ~ 43% (Diageo) being the best indication of this distillery’s output. Here the SMWS have bottled a 15 year old ex-bourbon barrel expression which appears to fall into the ‘sweet’ nature of Strathmill.

Colour:

Just a shade under full amber gold (7/20) medium-thick trails (oily?)

Nose:

Sweet, sweet. sweet, golden syrup and honey, floral daisy and daffodil, cereal barley flour, cake and biscuits, fruity pear, pineapple, apple, almond oil, icing sugar, old sweet shop aromas, dried apricots, rosey apples, white mice, foam bananas sweeties, freshly baked pastries with lashings of icing sugar

Taste:

Sweet honey, golden syrup, icing sugar, backed by deep cereal barley flour, baked sweet pastries, cinnamon Danish and custard tarts, tarte aux pommes, vanilla slice, vanilla custard, with light sprinkles of cinnamon and nutmeg throughout and a deep caramel/toffee oak backing

Finish:

Medium-long, sweet caramel, gently spiced oak and vanilla persist becoming a high and light vanilla and icing sugar sweetness eventually

Overall:

A delicious example from a little heard of distillery. The SMWS have managed to capture the extreme sweetness in this expression that overpowers the Flora and Fauna bottling. Perhaps a few more years in the cask has added a little body and syrupy undertones to this expression to carry it. This is definitely one for the sweet-toothed (of which I am guilty).