18/10/2020 One Fettercairn

Fettercairn 28yo 1988/2017 (48.9%, The Nectar of the Daily Drams special edition for TastToe, 16/06009): the label reads 2017 as the bottling date, but the bottle is ink-jetted 2016. It was likely bottled in 2016 for a 2017 release. Nose: with lots of cereals, this is yeasty and husky (boiled pork, marinated in red wine, and pot ale), yet it is also hay-like, broadcasting hay bales, onion seeds and mulch. Flat, strong cider and veal escalopes, funnily enough. I will not lie: there is also a steady dose of young alcohol, perhaps unaged pear spirit, which is incomprehensible, for a whisky this old. Chaff, dried hops -- we come back to cereals. Poultry food comes back (cereal-based, probably), and a strange crossing of maple-syrup biscuits and leather, as well as cut plums and a cider-based sauce, heated in a frying pan. Mouth: still grainy on the palate, it has more poultry food and chaff, straw and over-cooked veal escalopes. The pear spirit soon comes back to balance all that out, and the alcohol bite even suggests sea air or surgical alcohol. At this modest strength, it is unexpected, to say the least! Green tea enters the dance -- and is that a pinch of ash? The second sip brings grapefruit peel, bitter lemonade, tonic water, almost. The grapefruit's acidity takes over the bitterness, from the third sip on, never turning into a fruity serenade. Finish: long and warming, it is precise and narrow -- not quite blade-sharp, yet also not ample. Warm roasted barley, straw, warmed by the August sun, chaff and iodine, bordering on germoline. That medicinal touch is unexpected, yet persistent. It is not like drinking ether, obviously, but it is definitely there as an underlying structure. It gives this beautiful dram an additional dimension for the better. Citric acidity appears in the finish too, in the long run, and complements the predominantly cereal-y profile really well. It is surprising how sharp and lively this one is. It feels younger than it truly is, even though the manageable ABV make that totally acceptable. 8/10