Clynelish 1997 Carn Mor (Sherry Cask) Review

Hi everyone,

This was a bottling I’ve wanted to try for a while. Big strength, Sherry cask, 1997 Clynelish. What’s not to like?

Luckily for me I’ve been at the whisky festival Noord Nederland in Groningen, which felt more like a crazy party weekend than work. Great, great festival though with a great bunch of awesome people. Not often I give an 89, 92 and 94 within 2 days either!

 

Clynelish 1997 Carn Mor 57%

Colour: Amber

Body: Light/Medium

Nose: Not what I expected at all! Meaty yet light and floral, pomegranate, sour green apple, freshly washed linen, raspberry and black pepper. Fragrant.

Water: Much better, classy oak, some wax now, lovely red apple.

Taste: Soft, sweet and building meaty Sherry, fruit and spice. Floral but quite light. Lots of oak into the finish.

Water: Better integrated.

Finish: Medium/Long length. Lovely, by far the best part of this dram, classy oily oak, dunnage.

Thought this would be a big sweet Sherry cask, waxy Clynelish. Nope. None of that here. Instead its light and floral, almost Lowland like in its style.

81/100

Distillery: Clynelish

Average Score: 79.7

Distillery Ranking: 10th/64 places

Up/Down: Up 1

Thanks for reading!

Scotch Review #596

Whisky Network Review #706

Network Average: 74.6

Best Score: 94

Worst Score: 12

0-49 Terrible

50-59 Bad

60-64 Just About OK

65-69 Ok to Good

70-74 Good

75-79 Very Good

80-84 Excellent

85-89 Superb

90+ Magnificent

Full Disclosure Disclaimer: I currently work as a Brand Ambassador for Penderyn Distillery. The views expressed here are purely my own and do not reflect the views of Penderyn Distillery or The Welsh Whisky Company. I try to maintain as much objectivity as I can but feel free to take my reviews with as big a pinch of salt as you like. Furthermore, my rating scale is NOT based on a Parker type wine scoring scale or a school/college/university % or A-F grade score. You can find more on my scoring here. I apologise for any seemly low or 'bad' scores given with my system and I am sorry I can't say only nice things. Please keep in mind that I am ethically compromised and I am unable to produce 100% unbiased reviews.

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