What they say

“We have a long history with Lord Byron, as he gifted whisky, which is thought to have been SPEY, to King George III on the occasion of his marriage. Byron loved the Latin language, and so these expressions are a tribute to that passion.” Speyside Distillery CEO John Harvey McDonough.

The first ever peated distillery bottling from Speyside Distillers. Produced from peated barley, which the distillery only used for a small amount of time each year. 100% matured in bourbon barrels, & bottled a 60.4%, non chill-filtered and with no added colouring. A limited release of 1500 individually numbered bottles.

What I say

The final sample in the #SpeysideDistillery twitter tasting hosted by Steve @TheWhiskyWire and @SpeySingleMalt. This was my first foray into official bottlings of The Speyside distillery’s range.

Spey Fumare uses peated malted barley for distillation at The Speyside distillery which is then fully matured in 100% ex-Bourbon casks. The standard release is at 46%, again here this is the Cask Strength version, a smaller batch of 1500 bottles from batch #2 bottled at 60.4% ABV.

• ABV 60.4%
• Age NAS
• Bottler Official
• Bottling Fumare
• Cask Bourbon
• Category Single malt Scotch whisky
• Cost £60
• Origin The Speyside Distillery
• Outturn 1500 bottles
• Region Speyside
• Released 2021
• Vintage Undeclared

My tasting notes

• Appearance Sparkling light gold (5/50) medium-large tears and thick legs.
• Nose Smoke, charcoal briquettes, peaty, some salinity/iodine, grassy cereals, smoked apple or celery, smoked scallop meat, apple blossom and linen later nut brittle or honeyed nuts followed by vanilla and coconut mushrooms.
• Taste Medium-full bodied, creamy white chocolate, vanilla, toasted coconut, coal tar soap, coal dust, chilli and smoked sea salt flakes aplenty.
• Finish Long eucalyptus oil, sea salt and honey,
• Overall A fire-breathing beast of a dram from Spey which manages to capture everything from the light fruity apple nature of Spey’s distillate and plenty of Bourbon cask classic flavours too. Perfect at CS or with a healthy sploosh of water, the smoke travels a long way.

Score 86/100

Don’t take my word for it:

Bloggers submit link to your review