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By: David Othenin-Girard | K&L Staff Member | Review Date: 6/8/2022 | Send Email
These sherried Craigellachies are an absolute delight. We don't like to do the same thing year in and year out, but when they keep dropping these on us and the price goes DOWN, we just can't say no. This new one is a classic funky Craigie, which reminds us that this is one of Speyside's most flavorful malts and loves to play against a great sherry butt. The color is deep gold. The nose offers that great Craigellachie funk, industrial and old school, which few modern malts offer. The sherry is there, but it doesn't feel artificially winey like some modern bottlings can. We get almond butter, roast pecans, bright red fruit, slight camphor smoke, wisps of engine oil, black olive, kirsch and golden raisins. On the palate it's sweeter than expected - now offering some gorgeous dark chocolate, Figgie pudding, sweet candied plums and a slight minty note on the finish. With water we add some nutty notes on the nose but it stays pretty in line, but on the palate there's now a wonderfully rich velvety texture and more tropical fruit. This is an absolutely wild whisky and definitely one for the lovers of a bit of funk, although I waffle on whether to add water or not. It's not Sulphur-y though so if you're sensitive to that I don't think it will be a problem. I feel like this is a very underrepresented style that I wish we saw more of - even last years excellent 16 year was much more straight forward and this one offers much more nuance.
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