I used to know a Charlotte in Belgium, so a Port Charlotte will do.
127.44 12yo 2003/2016 Cantina Mexicana (65.9%, SMWS Fèis Ìle Islay 2016, 2nd Fill ex-Oloroso Sherry Butt, 588b): nose: just pouring it fills the room with an obstinate bacon smell. Then, it is a mix of warm fortified wine and dark berries, both thrown onto the earthen ground and trampled into a pulp. The earthy note turns greasier and greasier, and it is augmented with corroded copper, so oxidised and eaten by verdigris that one would be hard-pressed to identify it with any level of certainty. I is definitely metallic, though. Perhaps a hint of petrol as well? Or is that oil print. Braised tournedos, colour markers and, much later on, cooked cabbage -- red cabbage, to be accurate. Water tones down the earth and smoked meat, and lets some fruit shine brighter. And shine it does too: we now have tinned orange segments, smoked lychee, then hot wax and cedarwood ash. At a push, one might detect spent matches -- Union Matches, with the red sticks and yellow tips. Mouth: shy and discreet to a flaw, this barely registers as whisky. Why did they reduce this? It could have been half decent at cask strength... ;-) Seriously, it is more tolerable than one might fear, considering the ABV, yet it is hot -- and it grows in intensity too! Hot barbecue sauce, biltong (this is salty and a half, on the tongue) and manure. One is transported to a cattle-rearing farm that doubles up as a smokehouse. It has some berries on the palate too (cherry compote, lingonberries), and a drop of Madeira wine (it is rather dry). Peaty, earthy, hairy, fruity in a stewed-fruit way, this has no subtlety whatsoever, et it does what it does in an adequate fashion. It becomes earthier and earthier as time passes, with the berries moving away from sweet compote, and coming closer to vinegar. It could be a bed thing, yet it hangs together. With water, it falls apart, or so it seems; it turns watery with only a drop, and struggles to emit anything. Distant spent matches, maybe? Finish: big without being monstrous, it is assertive alright. Warm Madeira wine, scorched earth, warm hair, and, eventually, a minerality that comes as a bit of a surprise: limestone and shale. We do have a drop of red-fruit vinegar, at this stage too, though it is hard to pick, behind the bold earthiness -- an earthiness that morphs into cigar smoke and oily tobacco. This is properly viscous! Plum liqueur, elderberry cordial. As it did on the palate, water turns this into something utterly forgettable. In fact, it gives me the impression of drinking a half-evaporated blend miniature from the 1970s: it is a glass of water with a drop of whisky in it, making for a dusty-water profile, in which only the bad notes make it through (sulphur and vinegar). As disappointing as it is surprising, really. Avoid water! I realise I like my peated whiskies first in the morning, as opposed to last in a line-up. I am much more alert and open-minded about it. 7/10 (Thanks for the dram, OB)
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