01/09/2025 Springbank

Springbank 8yo 1985/1994 (61.1%, Cadenhead, Sherrywood, 94/285): nose: this one has OME too, just like the Scapa the other day, wood dust and metal filings (tin, brass), yet that does not hide a strong distillate, at once fruity and rustic. Dried-apple gratings, farm paths, encaustic, patina-covered wooden chairs, and WD-40. It has new ploughs, harrows and various agricultural tools, though little earth, especially for a Springer. Time adds more of that earth, dark, fertile, musty, mushroom-y, yet what dominates the nose are furniture polish and WD-40. The second nose turns all wintry, with logs on a cast-iron rack by the fireplace, a fireside set (that little shovel, the pliers, brush and hook), and a minimal dose of soot. Next up are roasted apples, smoked lemons, chargrilled yellow peppers. The furniture from earlier is now but a fading memory. There may be a drop of prune juice. the only sign this used to rest in a Sherry cask. Water operates a strange transformation: this now exhibits a mix of leather and rubber, discreet orchard fruit and limestone. Mouth: crisp as lime juice, acidic and sharp as a blade. It dishes out one spray of WD-40, chewing tobacco and, in a matter of seconds, surgical alcohol. Indeed, this is strong, anaesthetising. Chewing delivers a lime-scented spray that may well be metal lubricant applied on shiny-blue metal (a cylinder head comes to mind, or razor blades) and marries that with dried apple gratings (or dried-apple gratings). All that is happening in a field in which are a tractor and its new plough. The second sip is sweet and mineral; it combines caster sugar and sandstone chippings -- ha! Chewing helps sugar get the upper hand, only to meet acidic citrus, now not just lime, but pomelo too, with stone chippings in the background. Adding water confirms the acidic, warm, smoked limes, pressed, and the juice heated again. Finish: softer than expected (though not soft), it prolongs the fruity-earthy trip with cut apples laid cut side up in a ploughed field in dry weather. It is also remarkably metallic, and that goes further than the blade that cut the apples; we have tins full of brass buttons, belt buckles and tins of tobacco. Retro-nasal olfaction picks up dark soil (not of the potting kind), a whisper of smoke, burning wood and the hot cast-iron grille of a fireplace. The second gulp is more powerful for a split second, then becomes perfectly tolerable neat again. It is a slow burner: low heat for a veeeeeeery long time. Now, we perceive the bitterness of apricot stones mixing with split slate, bone-dry lime (pomelo?) zest, the smoke of blond tobacco, and hot cast iron. Funnily enough, it feels punchier with water. It has hiking boots (not worn enough to hint at tropical fruits, yet undeniably funky to a point), powdered eucalyptus and smoked pomelo. The limestone, so present on the reduced palate, is virtually absent, here. And the pomelo zest from earlier is less dry; in fact, it becomes chewy again. This is rustic, uncompromising and excellent. 8/10