06/05/2021 Ardmore again

66.92 9yo 2007/2016 Simply delicious (57.6%, SMWS Society Single Cask, Refill ex-Bourbon Barrel, 24b): nose: a deep peat bog, moist and spongy, topped with strawberry jam. It is a farm-y type of peat, wet farm; farmyard and farm paths after the rain, muddy fields under the rising spring sun, even some (freshly-dropped) manure. It seems to emit chalk too, though that might be the sugar from the strawberry jam starting to set. Redcurrant jelly and gooseberry coulis almost completely mask new leather boots, and there is a drop of rubbing alcohol too. The second nose hints at plasticine -- a kind of plasticine that would smell like dried, tropical fruit. That is right: I now get mango paste. Finally, watercolour (brown, if you must know) and cucumber peel round off the nose. If anything, water amplifies the rubbery dried fruit, and puts it in a velvet purse, until plasticine and watercolour smother all that effortlessly. Mouth: punchy at cask strength, it has a hefty cassia-bark note and cracked black pepper to complement the strawberry jam. Thirty seconds in, muddy boots rock up, meaning rubber, crusted earth and leather, splashed with lemon juice -- odd and unexpected, but efficient. Plasticine shows up with the second sip, punctuated by fiery black pepper, ground cardamom, dried mango slices and dried apricots, perhaps. Toasted elements come into the spotlight, in the long run -- black cumin seeds, black sesame seeds and burning earth. Water dilutes the rubber almost beyond recognition (almost!) and dials up the chemical fruit (pineapple drops). Finish: similar notes in the finish, with lemon, leather, earth/mud, soft rubber, strawberry jam. Soon, the mud catches fire, and it becomes closer to scorched earth or clay in the oven oven, despite the humidity never really disappearing. Repeated sipping reveals lemon or lime juice, dried-mango paste and plasticine, stale pineapple cubes, cold cigar butts in an ashtray... and swimming-pool water (I guess that means chlorine), as unexpected as it is warming. I was wondering where the peat had gone; water brings it back from the dead, subtle, subdued, yet ever present, and carrying lovely, juicy pineapple chunks, and the most minute melted milk chocolate. This is excellent. 8/10