Dalwhinnie 15 Years Old Centenary Edition

Style: Fruity and Malty

Rating: ☆+ [Recommended]

Nose:

Mix of wild mint, semi-dried apricots and copper tone, signature Dalwhinnie. Mountain Dew bouncing off golden barley and lightly mizzle into boiled tropical fruits. Vanilla pudding and bountiful malt making it all sweet and round. Cold and powerful spearmint rush hitting the high skies and giving more room to creamy fruits and floral honey. A touch of cedar wood and wood smoke, dry mineral notes to finish.

Palate:

A rather medicinal and minty entrance, carrying sweet, fat and oily honey-tropical fruits into the fray. Delicious. Citrus-reduced tangerines and mandarins. Then in comes some nectarines and peach-flavoured barley. Winter melon candy ice cream (if only such thing exist), malt chiffon cake lightly dusted with icing sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon. Amazing amount of high quality malt we have here. Going slightly earthy at the end.

Finish:

Tropical fruits juice injected into konjac, fruit jellies, herbal overtone lingering till the end.

Thoughts:

Natural cask strength version of the classic Dalwhinnie 15 years old, an excellent choice for its centenary bottling to be honest. Dalwhinnie is one of my earliest malt when I first started my whisky journey, so I might be a bit biased here. Now when compared to the regular 15, this expression shares a similar profile, but due to its strength, it also provides a vastly different tasting experience. While some of its low-abv balance and composure is lost here, in return you receive the maximum amount (as well as quality) of fruits and malt which is absolute delicious. By the time I finish writing this review, I have already polished off half of it… Such a beautiful dram.

[56.1% | Original Bottling | 1998 Bottled | Limited Edition | Natural Cask Strength | *+]

Originally published on Instagram