Review by: The Muskox

This single-cask bottling of Edradour was selected for Spec’s in Texas. I’ve been fortunate enough to try many of their cask picks, and in my opinion they rival Binny’s picks in quality and diversity.

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Distillery: Edradour.

Bottler: Official bottling.

Region: Highlands.

ABV: 61.7%, cask strength.

Age: 11 years old. Distilled on 11/15/2008. Bottled on 05/18/2020.

Cask type: Ribera del Duero Matured.

Color: Light amber. No colour added, un-chillfiltered.

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Nose: Sweet. There’s wine, but not overwhelming. Gentle reddish fruit notes of macerated raspberries, blood orange, white cherries. Dusty malt, buttery shortbread, jam sandwich cookies, buttered popcorn, dark chocolate, slightly burnt. Rosemary. Something earthy and a bit meaty.

Water adds a certain freshness, and tamps down the wine a little. Very malty now.

Palate: Oily texture, pretty hot unsurprisingly. Arrives with juicy stonefruit, orange, and brown sugar. Rich earthy malt in the middle with some tannic oak. Lots of cherries and some vanilla.

Less sweet with the water. There’s a creamy note here now – vanilla soft serve, butter, cream soda. A hint of earth, like some underlying green bean, or almost sulfur.

Finish: Syrupy. Peach cobbler, mandelbread, orange juice, and chocolate fudge. Robust roasted malt and more earth and rosemary.

With water, some cherry soda and grapefruit pith.

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Possible SMWS bottling name: “Shortbread tin sangria”

Notes: I poured this whisky 4 or 5 times, and still couldn’t bring myself to love it. It’s very hot, but adding water takes out some of the sweetness. There’s some nice deeper earthy notes here, but also this vegetal sulfur-like flavour that I’ve tasted in other Edradours and just couldn’t shake. I do like the juiciness of the fruit notes, and the general creamy and shortbread character, but ultimately it just doesn’t hold up to many of the other Edradours I’ve tried.

Final Score: 79.

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Scoring Legend:

• 95-100: As good as it gets. Jaw-dropping, eye-widening, unforgettable whisky.
• 90-94: Sublime, a personal favorite in its category.
• 85-89: Excellent, a standout dram.
• 80-84: Quite good. Quality stuff.
• 75-79: Decent whisky worth tasting.
• 70-74: Meh. It’s definitely drinkable, but it can do better.
• 60-69: Not so good. I might not turn down a glass if I needed a drink.
• 50-59: Save it for mixing.
• 0-49: Blech.