Hazelburn CV

Thanks to /u/cake_my_day for this sample.

When I first started drinking different whiskies and reviewing them, I slowly heard about Campbeltown. To give an idea of how little most knew about it, when I took the Scotch Whisky Tour in Edinborough, the tasting didn’t include anything from the region.

Yes, the place with one of the largest collection of whiskies on the planet didn’t have anything from the region.

So I started looking around for them. One of the first bottles I purchased after I started reviewing was Springbank 10. And while I read more and more about them, I found out about the CV releases.

CV(Curriculum Vitae, Latin for “background”) editions are a blend of different ages made to introduce you to the whisky profile.

Hazelburn CV is meant to be just that. Springbank CV mixes different types of casks at different ages, Longrow CV followed this with idea with similar ages. Hazelburn CV? No idea of the ages compared to the others, and while it comes from a variety of different casks, I couldn’t find out what kind (where as I could find the specifics of the other two).

So this is the last CV for me to hunt down. Let’s see how it tastes, shall we?

Price: N/A at the LCBO

Region: Campbeltown

Abv: 46%

Colour: 7.5Y 9/8

Nose: Soap, orange, floral, sugar cookies, cereal, sultanas

Light nose. Hazelburn is triple distilled, so that’s not a huge surprise.

Quite floral, and even when there’s a wine influence, it’s lighter (sultanas versus a stronger red raisin). It’s interesting, however I almost feel like I’m going to have to jam my face through the glass to smell it.

Taste: Raisin, cranberry juice, spritey, mineral, caramel

Little bit more red wine influence. I’d say there was some sherry casks used, though not too many that it draws away. Oddly the mineral comes before the fruit.

Not a fan of that. It’s almost backwards in how it opens up, and with the sweet starting it off, it’s like having your cake before your meat, and doesn’t flow great.

Finish: Raisin, spritey, red grape, dry, cardamon, molasses

Similar to the taste, has a more dry, rum like quality. More spice, however still not really blowing me away.

Conclusion: This has a young element to it with the spriteyness. It’s light on the nose, though has some nice flavours to it.

Overall I’m not really blown away by it, and feel that it doesn’t really do anything too out there. Longrow and Springbank had rum elements, port elements, and it showed off the dram well. This one seems almost like a Hazelburn 6 year that may have had a few months in a golden rum cask from Guyana.

It’s nice, and I’m happy to have had all of the CV series now. Or at least all of the ones I can find of the editions. I’d say try other ones from Hazelburn over this one, as I preferred them (save for the 8 year).

76/100

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