16/05/2024 Speyburn

Speyburn-Glenlivet 15yo 1975/1991 (60.1%, Cadenhead): nose: very dry, full of dust, desert dirt, grist, and hay bales that have spent the summer in the uninterrupted sunshine. Not many other whiskies smell quite like this. Breathing and shaking the glass bring forth a fruit-eau-de-vie touch, kirsch, slivovitz, or such, then we return to our hay bales and dust. It is noticeably more mineral, all of a sudden, and it is quarry dust that emerges, flint chippings, slate filings. It takes a little grassy detour too, ivy leaves macerating in the same eau-de-vie we spotted before. One can tell it is going to be a challenging dram, already, and not just because of the high ABV. Exciting! Further on, we have more grist, wetted, not porridge yet, and remote Bourbon-cask staves -- toffee, custard. Perhaps it has some dried mixed peel too. The second nose cranks up the dusty notes so much it is closer to pulverised glass (does that count as sand?), with the odd grist-y scent. In fact, we have buckets of crushed glass left in the sun. Kickboxer comes to mind. The sun is a staple, is it not? Just a couple of drops of water add a citrus note to this; dried calamansi, or even pineapple. There is nothing juicy here: it is simply more acidic and fruity. Mouth: boom. It is of course rather hot. A fierce blend of ground peppers (black and white), or a pepper sauce, the sort restaurants serve with steak, haystacks on fire, smoked herbs (oregano, tarragon), and campfire stones that have split from the heat. It has a grimier side too, now, probably a bucket of soot. The second sip is all about dust. Dusty ashes collected in the tray of the built-in fireplace, soot, pulverised glass, granite dust, coal dust, torched lemon zest, subsequently ground in a pestle and mortar, a horse's back, after it has rolled around in dirt. Water makes it fresher and fruitier, although it remains powerful too. Lemon slices topped with sprigs of parsley. All that is missing is the seafood, really. Instead, we have dusty grist, and something root-y... Cassava flour? Finish: hard to describe. Is my gob totally anaesthetised? No, but apart from a general warmth, I am struggling to figure out what is happening -- if anything. It seems balanced enough, like a warm (not scalding) bath. That is spot on! This has a gentle swimming-pool quality to it, which spells chlorine, surely. Nothing wrong with that; it does not cause red eyes, or anything. Just an eerily-familiar feeling of having been in contact with warmed disinfected water. It is no longer really dusty: gone are the hay bales and the eau-de-vie, the ivy and the custard. The second gulp revives the toffee a little, and, incredibly, presents it in a watered-down form. Indeed, we are seeing watery melted toffee, sprinkled with grist dust (only the dust). Now, that is something one might expect of a 1970s blend at 40% from a half-evaporated miniature. From this beast? Most unusual! Water does not change the finish much. We still have watered-down toffee. If anything, it is less watered-down, which is counter-intuitive. It is dusty toffee, too, one that was forgotten in a cupboard for decades. The finish very much harks back to blends of yesteryear, which all tasted the same. One wonders if it is because they were all full of Speyburn. The distillery allegedly supplies huge volumes in bulk to various houses, after all. A very interesting drop. It would score higher with a stronger finish, though. 7/10