Springbank didn’t belong to my favourite whiskies until recently. I don´t know exactly why but I always ignored them a little bit. It just wasn´t on my wish list. Perhaps it arose after I first started drinking whisky I’d bought a Springbank, which I found rather rough. After that I always thought that it wasn’t my kind of whisky. But over the years I was yet again curious about Springbank and I found out that I couldn’t have been more wrong! The Springbank whiskies are most of the time really beautiful, but it is not exactly a entry level whisky. This might be my first Springbank review, but you can certainly expect more in the near future. This is a Springbank 1999 from the guys from Whiskybase, released under their own label Archives.
This Springbank has matured in a sherry hogshead for 17 years and is bottled at 50,3% ABV. Cask #269.
Springbank 1999 – Archives tasting notes:
Nose: Smoke and minerals at first. When this settles down, the fruity notes appear. Dried fruit like raisins, a sweet orange and pear, even some green grapes. Also a bit medicinal with a pinch of anise.
Taste: There is some sweetness from cane sugar, the minerals are back and it is a bit fruity. Ripe pears. Also dried fruit. Then some dark chocolate appears. A bit spicy too, cinnamon and white pepper in the background.
Finish: This is a long finish, nice! Smoke and pepper and slightly dry.
A fantastic Springbank! There is a lot to explore in this one. When I had a second dram I picked up completely new flavours. Quite surprising. The nose and finish are slightly better than the taste, taste is a little bit more flatter, but not much though.
