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Springbank 21 Year Old bottled 1990s

Average score from 3 reviews and 5 ratings 93

Springbank 21 Year Old bottled 1990s

Product details

  • Brand: Springbank
  • Bottler: Distillery Bottling
  • ABV: 46.0%
  • Age: 21 year old

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Springbank 21 Year Old bottled 1990s

from a purchased sample

Nose: Fresh and nice. There's a very nervous balance between the sweet barley and the sherry. Bright, acidic red apples, pears, melon, orange pith, and mirabelles. On the ex-bourbon side of the house, there's a clear dose of vanilla. The aromas are bright - even surprising for 46% - with waxy flowers, wine, pink grapes (if you know what I mean), and all the rest of it. Not quite the full fruit that you sometimes get in a well-sherried Springbank, but it's clearly more in that direction than the 2013 release, and flits back and forth a bit, which was fun for me.

Palate: Seemingly simple at first, but continues to develop. At first, you might even think that this is a really lovely Clynelish with the vanilla, wax, oak, and general ex-bourbon niceness. Eventually, some of the waxy, oaky bitterness turns to white lemon zest and vague traces of sherry - plum skin and quince jam. Sherry loses a step, but it's in that really fabulous way that draws you closer and engages you.

Finish: The fruit from the sherry emerges more here, keeping it from being too straightforward. The fruity melange is present, but just so subtle, and it's tough to distinguish one fruit from the next. General profile of it is probably pretty similar to the various fruit notes on the palate and lesser so from the nose. Great, lasting finish. Not as smoky as I recalled, but perhaps it's present in the waxiness. B+/A- (90, and let's split the difference)

@galg

Nose: Spicy stuff, followed by fruitier sultanas, some black currant, cranberries, a dash of salt, while still quite sugary as in Demerara sugars, grape peel and a very faint hint of tobacco. a very nice and complex nose.

Palate: Spicy and pepper on entry too, with a lot of classy old wood, dusty cellar sort of, then enters the fruit, with a sprinkle of white pepper followed by apple, bitter grape peel, as in very dry white wine, sultana, some butterscotch, not very salty at all. rather playing the bitter-sweet-fruity-woody game with twists at random points in time, which make it all the more interesting.

Finish : Bitter wood and sweet sultana , fig and some black fruit again.

So, how was it? Top dram no doubt, and now I am beginning to regret not getting the 21 year old released last year… oh well, can’t have them all, can I?

Super complex, super nice. a big like. Superb stuff.

@WhiskyNotes

Nose: wow, one of the most impressive noses I’ve come across lately. Dry fruits (plums, apricot). A strong whiff of heather. Wonderful notes of old wood, dusty cellars. Just the right amount of sherry influence. Something of biscuits and sweet honey. Coconut? Cherries? Blueberries? Waxy notes as well and even a slight coastal edge. Hints of leather. Oh man, I could go on and on… Complex but so smoothly balanced. Mouth: liquid velvet. Fruity start, candied even. Developing on raisins and cassis. Heathered honey again. Growing spicier (cinnamon, vanilla) and oakier. Very nice touching of coal smoke, but really subtle. Salty liquorice towards the end. Finish: very long, regaining raisin sweetness.

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