Compass Box Flaming Hearth, 10th Anniversary Edition

Thanks to /u/slackerdude for this sample.

Anniversary’s are an odd duck.Think about it: It’s basically a really, really big date. And you should probably be taking some fun, regular dates in the interim, and not waiting for New Years/Valentine’s Day/Mother’s Day (if you’re from the South) to have a nice date.

I mean… don’t you actually like the person?

Same goes for some of these releases. This seems to be the exact same Flaming Heart as the 4th one, save it’s divisible by 10. And they used First Fill American oak on this one. And didn’t mention any sherry casks.

More Isle of Mull in this one as well.

I don’t really know what to think of all of this. I mean, it SEEMS like they did more, and I was told to try it by a book, so… maybe it’ll taste good.

Or maybe it’s hype. Compass Box does do quite a few limited editions, so I wouldn’t be surprised.

None the less, let’s see if whatever they saved as “special” is actually special.

Or just special in that “you’re all special snowflakes” way.

Let’s see how it tastes, shall we?

Price: N/A

Region: Blend

Abv: 48.9%

Colour: 10YR 7/8

Nose: Smoke, caramel, anise, floral, cinnamon, hazelnut, ginger, butterscotch, strawberry, peach juice

Big flavours. Really big flavours. Spicey, like a nice lingerie, but also quite tasty, like a nice steak dinner, or going down on…

Wait, I’m mixing my metaphors too much. Floral, spicey, and a lot of fruit and caramel. Nice to nose.

Taste: Apple, smoke, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, caramel, lots of butter, pecan, cranberry

Reminds me of an apple cake. But a good apple cake, like the ones you want to have all the time but you have to wait until the right apples are ready to bake and you buy Vietnamese cinnamon and having some Georgia pecans that you shouldn’t have brought back but holy damn they are so good so you skipped…

Uh… It’s good. It’s quite tasty. A bit too much butter, if such a thing was possible.

Finish: Cream, apple, cinnamon, peanut, pepper, leather, almond, grass

Kinda finishes with this grassy, almond taste mixed with yogurt. A bit odd.

Conclusion: This is slightly better than Compass Box Flaming Heart 4th edition. And my score reflects that.

That being said, it’s only slightly tastier. That’s not a dig at it: These are really tasty blends. Heck, really tasty Scotches. They exemplify what we should be getting from blends, a mixture of highs and lows that raise each other up rather than are just cheaper to bring out.

And as for anniversaries: They are still fun. It’s a fun excuse, just don’t forget the day to day stuff as well.

84/100

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