24/05/2020 Another couple of disparate samples

Caperdonich 20yo d.1996 (48.9%, cask sample): nose: coconut yoghurt, melted marzipan and cake icing float on a trickle of wine influences (white Port, brandy). The nose also gives linseed oil, sunflower seeds (and the associated oil, probably), then cocoa butter, shea butter, new teflon-coated denim and so much brandy I am wondering if the sample was mislabelled (it was not: I was there when the sample was made and I tried it on the spot). Soy milk, rice milk, vanilla rice pudding. The longer one noses it, the darker the Port becomes (white turns into tawny turns into vintage). Mouth: creamy and very much brandy-like, it has a little of the nose's coconut, more of the sunflower seeds, linseed oil and white Port, though this time, it also has milk-chocolate pralines. I would say with a ganache filling, but what do I know? Cocoa butter, hot rice pudding, rice tart (hi there, readers from Huy!), and, perhaps, dried dates and all-natural apple juice. Finish: a lovely, creamy finish, full of milk-chocolate pralines with a hazelnut-paste filling, a drop of hazelnut liqueur, brandy, yet also fudge, dark toffee, Brazil-nut butter, shea and peanut oil. The finish is definitely on the vanilla-wood side of the park, with a mere splash of brandy / liqueur to keep things interesting without turning sickly. Dark grapes, decaying apples and an undecipherable citrus-y note -- is it Curaçao, maybe? 8/10 (Thanks for the sample, TE)

And a blind second.

Dram #2
Nose: farm-y peat, with obvious farm paths, dried mud, caked onto tractor tyres, guaicol, lint, almost-mint-y tar, and quite simply put: an immense earthiness. Burning fruit-tree wood (pear tree), dried crab shells, capers, patted dry with kitchen paper, smoked capers, smoked tea... Then it turns a little vegetative, with stagnant water, cabbage water and spent matches, alongside exhaust fumes, cordite and matchbox strikers. Later on, sharp vinegar turns up, unannounced -- white-wine vinegar or alcohol vinegar, not particularly noble or anything. Mouth: it starts off with a surprisingly soft attack, and it is rather peachy. It soon unleashes some spices (ground coriander, ground cumin, ground cinnamon sticks), before the stagnant moss water comes back, with spent matches and fireworks as backing vocalists. Marsh gas, bogs, but also guaicol and burning cinnamon sticks. Smoked tea (Lapsang Suchong, to name the obvious one), cooked turnips and peat-reek. Finish: the finish is big and smoky / sulphury, with an interesting combination of exotic smoke and spent matches, exhaust fumes and dead marshes, stagnant water and brackish gas all in equal measures. Turnips turn up (that is a cool phrase!), gently sweet, swedes, and mentholated germolene, brackish lint, tar, spent-and-cooled-down fireworks, incense ash, burnt apple pips... In fact, the more one drinks this, the less stagnant water and the more roasted apple pips this displays. Nice. The BenRiach 20yo 1995/2015 (51.8%, OB specially selected and bottled for Premium Spirits Belgium, Oloroso Sherry Butt, C#7377, 636b) 7/10 (Thanks for the sample, Gaija)