08/04/2021 Aultmore

Aultmore 18yo 2000/2018 (55%, Adelphi Selection, Refill Sherry Casks, C#571+573, 480b): leftover sample from a trip to Ardnamurchan distillery in 2019. Nose: an enchanting note of enticing encaustic, furniture wax, beeswax, and honey, sticking to the wooden racks of the hive. There are some tea leaves, behind all that, a smorgasbord (Scrabble triple-triple, right there) of pouring honeys and beeswax. Manuka honey, acacia honey, even honey made from mountain flowers and tree buds. Well hidden in the background, I also find a soft and discreet murmur of Virginia tobacco, supported by warm bread and jam with, at last, delicately-roasted barley. It is extremely subtle, yet, when one pays attention, it feels relatively close to chocolate or treacle. The second nose seems more straightforwardly pine-tree-like, with sticky sap and polished pine cones (the tacky addition to any self-respecting holiday log cabin). It soon re-focuses on honey and wax, which is all for the better! Water makes the nose more herbaceous. It now has citrus leaves and bay leaves, kept in a tin in the sun. Oh! and cannabis plants, drying in the sun too. Mouth: the attack is bold, spicy and drying on the tongue. It is not quite the chalk that Aultmore often displays, yet it is no longer the rich honey either. Precious woods and furniture wax, carrying a certain bitterness, nail varnish, to an extent, but also that roasted barley from the deep nose. Maple syrup-coated pecans, cardamom pods, juniper corns and, in the long run, caramelised marmalade, bitter and sweet at the same time. Crystallised orange, mixed with Suc des Vosges -- yes: the freshness of pine and the bitterness of orange meet to produce something pretty interesting, augmented by a remote note of chocolate. I cannot say water helps the palate. In fact, it makes bay leaves take over and mute everything else. What a pity! Finish: the light bitterness is still there, and it comes with lots of precious woods, lacquered, polished, spicy and a tad drying. Chestnut shells, encaustic, polished broomsticks, the wax build-up on an old armchair... And then, it dawns on me that the beeswax is back, as is the honey. It is different, however: now, we are talking about dark, set honey made from walnut or chestnut, if such a thing exists (and if it does not, what are the beekeepers waiting for?) Let us be lucid: this has a fleeting note that is borderline plank-y; the emphasis is on 'fleeting', though. It quickly veers towards spices, with crushed juniper and cardamom, a sprinkle of ground clove and charred pecans, yet no maple syrup coating, this time. The mouth is left dry, a feeling reminiscent of that caused by chalkiness, perhaps. Just like the reduced palate, the reduced finish is one-dimensional, herbaceous (bay leaves again, tobacco leaves) and cardboard-y. Ruined by water. I must say: blind, I would never have pegged this as an Aultmore, nor even an 18yo. It feels older and closer to a well-known distillery in the northeast. Water is to be avoided, though. 8/10