Wolfburn 3 Year Old 2014 for Whiskysite.nl

Wolfburn already has quite a few bottlings despite the young age of their malts. Many of those are private casks and limited bottlings. This is one of those, bottled especially for the Dutch online shop whiskysite.nl. It matured on Spanish sherry casks and was bottle at cask strength after three years.

The nose is pretty herbal with something that reminds me of cow pat, half decomposed plants and stale, dark beer. Luckily it also has some sweetness like orange marmalade and ‘koetjesreep’ (fairly tasteless Dutch chocolate), but in all honesty this nose does not make me jump up and down in excitement. Adding water does not help. On the contrary, it adds lots of rubber on the nose.

The body is just fine, the spiciness under control and the whisky sweet from the sherry cask. Again a marmalade of oranges, upholstered with raisins and some plums. Quite some tannins, though, making it lose quite some points in my book. Diluted it’s just a tad better. The fruity notes are more pronounced and hide the somewhat less attractive notes – which are plentiful, I’m afraid.

The finish is rather short and sweet without water, but becomes pleasantly fruity with a good dollop of H2O.

Not a bad Wolfburn, mind you, but I’ve had much better. Bad wood? Who’s to say? Anyway, not a grand one in my book. Thanks, Tom, for the sample.