63.9% / £94.37 / Tasted neat, then with a drop of bottled water
This is my first Deanston, and it’s well dressed in a first-fill sherry but #900141, distilled on 14/06/2007 then bottled at 13 years on 13/01/2021. This is bottle 607 of a massive yield of 613 cask-strength, 63.9% ABV monsters.
There are still bottles available for purchase at the time of writing, such as 1 at TWB.
- Color: tawny (1.4)
- Nose: palo cortado, raisins, vanilla ice cream with whipped cream, almonds; honey-baked ham, hibiscus
- Taste: vanilla cream puff butter pastry, mango, candied 7-dimensional papaya; waxy mead
- Finish: long and incredibly sweet; confectionary chocolate ganache
This is amazing. I think this is full-term palo-cortado cask (and an excellent one) maturation. This is not a regular ex-PX/Oloroso sherry finish, or even a nice full-term maturation. Palo Cortado is fairly rare in the world of finishing Scotch; I’ve really only seen it rarely, but to great effect, in some Bunnahabhains.
Rating: 96/100
