Oban Aged 12 Years Special Release 2021

Style: Sweet and Fruity

Rating: ☆ [Recommended]

Nose:

Fresh, fizzing apple cider aroma fills up the space while caramel crème brulee forms at a lower altitude. Clean and quite sweet. Yacult followed by splashes of orange lemonade. Behind a light sea breeze mist reveals a strong herbal spine, with peppermint and Thai basil dipping into a peach and nectarine punchbowl. Distant firewood crackling and the smoke is increasingly visible over time. Chalk, soybean and some young esters at the end. Not bad.

Palate:

Orange blossom touchdown, the texture is quite white wine-y with a slight buttery tartness circling on the palate. Refreshing red apple flesh, below it there is a sweet, luscious caramel cascading down onto a blazing, energetic herbal stream. More orange peels and curacao setting in, with olive oil, camphor, linseed, torched cinnamon bark and cedarwood building around it. More red chillies and peppercorns. Mangoes and papaya compote dresses over a delicate malt, oatmeal, vanilla and chargrilled pineapples.

Finish:

Sweet orange, apple, pineapple and aloe vera lingering, whereas camphor and chalkiness stacks up till the end. A subtle mineral touch leaving a mark on the dying flames of burning spice.

Thoughts:

Here we are, an Oban 12 at full strength, although I am not sure how this is “a tale of twin foxes”. Things that marketing has to do these days. So, reviewing this whisky is particular tricky because I feel this is such an uncut, highly spirit-driven expression - extremely sweet, slightly funky and numerous secondary elements loosely (and some elusively) tethered together - making it quite hard to capture and pinpoint the dimension of this Oban, which seemed quite clean and easy on the surface but surprisingly hazy when you try to look beyond it. A rather advanced dram and I like it.

[56.2% | Original Bottling | Vatting | Limited Edition | 2021 Bottled | Natural Cask Strength | Matured in ex-Bourbon and Refill casks | *]

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