Tamnavulin NAS Review: Return of the Swamp!

Hi everyone,

After all those exclusives (more to come), this one is very readily available and cheap. I think it's on deal at the moment for £22...

I've only tried one Tamnavulin before and it wasn't the best experience I've had with a whisky... cough swampy cough

This is the first official bottling they've done for a long time, because it's their 50 year anniversary.

The distillery was actually closed from 1995 to 2007 and I would assume all the whisky in this one is post-closure (let's hope anyway haha, that 1993 was terrible!)

 

Tamnavulin 40%

Colour: E150a

Body: Light/Medium

Nose: Thankfully not swampy, lots of orange, heather, honey.

Taste: Light, a bit thin but orange and heather, some spice, a little weird off note in the background, burnt plastic?

Finish: Medium length. Heather spice but a little weird off note and chocolate.

So this was finished in Sherry casks, and although you get a bit of chocolate, you don't get much of the usual Sherry flavours. Much more heather and orange, but the weird notes make it a bit odd.

59/100

Thanks for reading!

Scotch Review #421

Whisky Network Review #468

Network Average: 74.7

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

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 am sorry I can't say only nice things. Please keep in mind that I am ethically compromised and am unable to produce 100% unbiased reviews.

Why is this here?

Tamnavulin 1993 Old Malt Cask Review

Hello all,

On my quest to taste a whisky from every distillery in Scotland, I did taste a lot of rubbish. Speyside distilleries that all tasted the same, cheap indie bottlings from re-re-re-re-re-refill casks, but this was the biggest surprise.

I had a hard time tracking down a sample of Tamnavulin. They haven’t released an official bottling until very recently and the indies that had samples were much older expressions. Not really surprising given that it’s made for blends and was closed 1995-2007.

In the end, I managed to convince myself to get this while I was buying other samples.

What a mistake.

Photo courtesy of Master of Malt

Tamnavulin 1993 Old Malt Cask 50%

Colour: Light Gold

Body: Light

Nose: Weird. Soap, cheap perfume, flowers, pollen, freshly cut grass, plastic, melon, lemon, some yeast.

Water: MUCH more yeasty, rising dough, gin, angelica root.

Taste: Follows the nose. Starts with soap, then more floral, flower shop, honeysuckle, honey, chlorophyll, some clean alcohol.

Water: Softly floral, perfume, building soap, ugh! Yeast and cheap Pu-Erh tea (swamp water).

Finish: Medium length. Weird soapy oak and some perfumed chocolate.

From Cask 11150 a refill butt, bottled 2014 at 21yo.

Independent bottlers sometimes buy cask from distilleries that don’t fit with the profile or style that the distillery is looking for. That can mean that they are a bit weird, or unexpected and this is really the perfect example. It’s just unfortunate that ‘weird’ means ‘soapy swamp water’ weird. Also, a great example of older not equalling better.

49/100

Thanks for reading!

Review #278

Network Average: 75.5
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