Bladnoch 8 Year Old 2009 CaskAid

CaskAid is a npo that selects some nice single casks, bottles them and then donates the proceeds to charity. Sipping whisky for a good cause? Best excuse ever! One of their bottlings is this young Bladnoch from 2009, of which they only released 54 bottles.

Damn, not again! This nose too is rife with baby puke on the nose, which I also had with the official releases! This turns into plasticine and rotten eggs. Sorry, but even the big influence of the bourbon cask cannot overcome this. Sure, it has citrus and even some coconut, but putty and rubber take the reins and it simply does not work. It takes at least five minutes for the off-notes to make some room for vanilla and barley sugar. After about ten minutes, it starts to smell like lemon juice on steroids. But the sneakers are never far off.

It is very piquant upon arrival, but nicely creamy. Again that rancid edge that suddenly becomes very, very salty. This is more a mix of Caol Ila and Ledaig than Bladnoch. What is going on here? It turns into oyster sap. Goodbye, sweet notes. This is brackish, but… wait… damn! It becomes quite good! This is not possible. This is not possible! Or is it? It becomes a mix of sweetened and salted butter with lemon juice. Vanilla becomes grand. Let us not forget white pepper.

The finish is long, sweet, salty and bitter all at the same time. This belongs in a sanatorium! Dry at the death.

This malt is as crazy as can be. Stinking on the nose, very brackish on the palate and a drying finish. But good fun, which is why this scores much higher than the official Bladnoch, despite the off-notes on the nose.

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