Nose: 24/25 very similar to their 40% bottling except here the citrus and the oak have the starring rolls and it takes time for the barley to secure its place;
Taste: 24/25 ooomph…!! For a while you are not just speechless but without the power of thought; not so much the alcohol intensity – its pretty pathetic compared to the cask strength rums I work with, for instance – but the sheer thickness of the flavour and mouthfeel. It’s a soup of malt, much reduced, with perhaps some of the most intense barley I have ever had the great fortune to come across;
Finish: 24/25 thins out sufficiently for the brain and tastebuds to make some sense of what is happening in there: the oaks, we learn, have arrived but still can’t get much of a word in edgeways against the malt; also, miraculously, a thin seam of citrus has survived; some quaint spices jostle for a place at the very back;
Balance: 24/25 quite simply astounding: this is how 19-year-old whisky should be.
Score: 96