Thursday 19 January 2017

TBWC Islay Blended Malt #1 23yo Review

Hello everyone,

Got an interesting story and whisky today. It’s from That Boutique-y Whisky Co., it’s a blended malt all from Islay, it’s 23 years old and the components and percentages have been listed. A great move from them I think, really helping transparency and the reason I pre-ordered a bottle on their site when I saw it. Also, the price was right. About £80 for a 50cl bottle.

However, at the time of pre-ordering it was a different whisky. It was at 50.7% and there were 419 bottles.

The cheeky buggers then go and add some water to bring it down to 46.3% with 500 bottles. Which I probably wouldn’t have minded if Master of Malt had told me, which they didn’t bother to. Luckily, I saw it on the website and emailed them and they sent me a voucher for my trouble.

I still find it disturbing that they would water it down after putting it up for pre-order, even if it was better at that strength, because the price stayed the same. Unless it was actually cask strength and they made a mistake, which I find very unlikely as the number of bottles went up.

Sneaky.

Anyway, the whisky: It’s 60% Ardbeg, 35% Laphroaig and 5% Bowmore all aged over 23 years.

TBWC Islay Blended Malt #1- 23yo 46.3%
Colour: Dark Gold
Body: Medium/Full
Nose: Rich Bourbon barrel notes, lots of honey, coconut, roasted nut, cask wax, beeswax, honeycomb, milk chocolate. The smoke is in the background with engine oil, Ardbegian smoky lime juice, some lemon and a little orange too, seashore notes with rotting kelp and seaweed.
More fruit after a bit- Citrus, lemon, orange and lime, liquorice root and mint.
Water: A lot more tropical fruit coming out, mango, pineapple, seaside fudge shop, toffee,
Taste: Sweet arrival, lovely honey, a little tropical fruit, very rich, very long development, building oak but the smoke overcomes it, oily lime, some lemon, bandages, plasters, mineral flint, seashore, kelp, seaweed, seashells.
Water: A much softer arrival, vanilla, toffee, caramel, very oily development with lime and Ardbeg peat smoke, lots of soot and ash.
Finish: Long length. Oily smoke covers the mouth, lime oil, orange oil, soot and some mineral flint.
Cheap for so much older Ardbeg and Laphroaig in it. That said, I’m not sure watering this down helped as the smoky notes have been dampened I think, although that could be the maturation. Seems like 1st Fill Bourbon barrels to me.
85/100

Apologies for the complaining, thanks for reading!

Review #287

Network Average: 75.4
Best Score: 92
Worst Score: 44
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

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