02/11/2026 Dalwhinnie

Dalwhinnie 30yo b.2019 (54.7%, OB Special Releases 2019, Hogsheads & Butts, 7584b, b#3278): nose: dusty leather-bound books in a musty cellar, clay floor, mortar dust and fungi starting to grow in the corners. We promptly leave that to step into a wood-panelled tasting room, with drinks cabinets, oily exotic woods (mahogany veers towards iroko, and even ebony) and chestnuts. It then goes back to mushrooms, pan-seared maitake, to be precise, and black-mould-riddled grout. Something sweet tries hard to be heard, liquorice bootlaces or such, but it struggles, in the shadow of the oily woods mentioned above. Maybe it has some kind of cake, brownie or so, still very moist (runny) on the inside, crusty and blackened on the outside, almost charred. The second nose has woodworm and wood dust. Fewer mushrooms, now, and not the same species: we are closer to dried birch polypore or hoof fungus. It could also be fungus-infested garden furniture, oiled in a bid to give it another year. But then, someone spilled apricot juice on that furniture. It is extremely jammy with water: peach jelly, rose-petal jelly, rosehip jelly, stem-ginger syrup. Woah! Mouth: it has the texture of apricot nectar and pouring honey, thick, yet flowing. It is sweet without being sickly. Chewing pumps apricot jam, smoked hot peaches, a few grains of cocoa powder and a lick of a Teflon tray straight out of the oven. The sides of the tongue detect a minute bitterness, cocoa powder or metal, which adds an additional dimension to this. The second sip is jammier, sweeter, and that comes with what seems to be a whisper of smoke. Oh! nothing crazy; it is as if the jam just came off the wood stove is all. And that impression lasts until the taste buds are a bit numb, really. Then, we find stem ginger and mace covered in honey. Sadly, water makes this a bit thin. It is nicely fruity, it makes me think of an elegant fragrance burner, but it has lost its lush texture. Finish: big and robust, it is fairly hot and kicks harder than the palate suggested. It has enough grated cocoa beans to make one miss the hot tinned peaches -- the peaches in particular, because the hot tin becomes clearer and clearer with each passing second. It is remarkably long and warming and ends up propelling cassia bark, which increases the impression of warmth and comfort. The second gulp brings up stem ginger dripping syrup, pouring honey augmented with a twist of the white-pepper mill, or English mustard served on a hot tin plate. It is still the donkey's with water, thankfully. Spices (ginger, pepper) and fruit juice, albeit thinner now than when undiluted. This is very, very good. 8/10