05/11/2023 Banffire Night 2023

Banff 33yo 1975/2009 (44.2%, Gentle Noses, Bourbon Cask, C#1490, 120b): nose: phwoar, Banff! What have we got? Fields of sun-drenched corn and wheat, sunflowers, and sunflower oil, meadow flowers, and honey-glazed jasmine blossom. In fact, it smells flowery-and-a-half, tonight, with lily-of-the-valley nicely complementing the jasmine. Then, out of nowhere, come juicy fruits, mostly apricot, but ripe peach and persimmon too. It has a faint aroma of flower-scented soap, not a distraction at all, and it could even be my nose malfunctioning. Honey comes back, now glazing unripe hazelnuts, fresh, green, and, well, a bit bitter, in an unripe way. The second nose is more assertive, displaying white wood (sawn birch, balsawood, hazel sawdust), alongside increasingly-dominant fruits (apricot, persimmon) and flowers (forsythia, kerria Japonica), as well, perhaps, just perhaps, as a dusty rag. Mouth: velvety and flowery, the palate recycles some of the nose's aspects, such as the apricots and the lily-of-the-valley, yet it supplements them with a pronounced bitterness -- unripe hazelnut and liquid detergent. To call it soapy would be a gross mistake; all the same, I do get some of that detergent. We have green wood behind that (hazel), and a pinch of charry dust from burnt hazel, yet it remains mostly fruity. The second sip is in line. The flowers turn into buttercups, chamomile, daffodils, even, and the texture reaches creamy, almost-buttery levels. Melted butter it is!. The whole benefits from a clean note of flower-scented candles, or hand wash, and there may also be a dollop of honey, poured onto a bowl of hot porridge. Finish: it is a complete delight, here, a sip of apricot juice that would have been topped with cassia bark, galangal, and burdock-root shavings. A minute bitterness subsists, as if the whole had been sprinkled with ground unripe-hazelnut shells -- exquisite! Further gulps confirm the finish to be this dram's highlight: it shines with an apricot-infused custard, and a dusting of soot. Indeed, the bitterness of unripe hazelnuts turns to soot. Belatedly, something fresh appears, in the back of the gob. It could well be mint chocolate, yet that is is one the few things that tOMoH does not like, and he likes this. Possibly chocolate, filled with some kind of lime paste, instead. In any case, it works! Interesting to see that, four months after our first encounter, I detect neither berries, nor mustard. Same general appreciation, overall, though. 9/10 (Thanks for the sample, Port Ardbeg)