Hi everyone,
Picking back up where we left off, I was in Toronto and met up with the awesome people of the Toronto Whisky Society. They proceeded to ply me with a bunch of whiskies, particularly Ledaig.
I think u/Devoz had these two beasts. So, thank you sir.
Ardmore is awesome stuff and we just selected one for one of the r/scotch bottlings. But these two casks I have been very interested in because they are quite unusual. A white wine hogshead and a sherry Gorda. White wine casks are very rarely used for whisky and these SMWS bottlings have been some of the few. The sherry Gordas, on the other hand, have become a little legendary for their huge sulphury and strange flavours.
Ardmore 2004 66.73 SMWS 61.1%
Colour: Gold
Body: Full
Nose: Really cool. Kinda medicinal, bandages, sulphury fruit, white peach, oily machine parts,some dirty vanilla, more smoke coming out now. Great nose.
Taste: Sweet start, white grape, dry oak, really oily, clean medicinal notes, bandages and funk, some fun sulphur playing around.
Finish: Short/Medium length. Goes quite soft here, losing power but still great mouthfeel. Quite a dry finish.
10yo from a White Wine Hogshead. Very interesting, very delicious. A shame about the short finish, really wanted it to be longer and more powerful.
81/100
Ardmore 1998 66.82 SMWS 57.5%
Colour: Dark Amber
Body: Full
Nose: A real fruit bomb and not exactly what I was expecting, loads of stewed plum, very sulphurous smoke in a good way, fruit salad, more meaty as it opens up, sour cherry, black cherry. Nice contrast of light and dark.
Taste: Very soft arrival, building this great sweetness, dry oak backed perfectly by fruit salad and fruit pastilles, oily, very little smoke actually, great development of flavour to this.
Finish: Medium length. More sulphurous here, struck match, brimstone and hellfire.
17yo from a Sherry Gorda. So damn good, these Gordas have a sulphurous reputation but this was a bit lighter and fresher than I was expecting.
85/100
Thanks for reading!
Scotch Review #784-#785
Whisky Network Review #929-#930
Network Average: 75.1
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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