Aultmore SMWS 73.69 “Dark side eclipsed by sweet joys”

Thanks to /u/xile_ for this sample.

This is yet another continuation of my ongoing series that I’m calling “Scotch Malts, Wife’s Selection”, in which my wife goes through my backlog of SMWS (Scotch Malt Whisky Society) samples that I haven’t reviewed yet, pours them blind, and then I review it blind.

So at this point I’m pretty sure anything that has funk and a citrus/lime element is a Ledaig. And I’m incorrect.

Take, for instance, Aultmore SMWS 73.69 “Dark side eclipsed by sweet joys”, a 22 year old whisky that was aged in an ex-sherry butt (teehee). From a distillery that I’ve had so few times that it’s shocked and appalled my fellow whisky friends, to the point they were dancing on tables, lifting their collective skirts and shrieking with fear.

Granted I’ve now had two more, and now I’m having a third, thus I think I’ve gone through the many options they themselves had.

When I’ve had Aultmores in the past, they’ve had that grassy and mint flavour, even when they were super sherried.

However time changes us all. For example: I’m fatter now. Let’s see if Aultmore gets fatter too, shall we?

Price: Sold out

Region: Speyside

Date Distilled: October 1992

Age: 22 years

Cask Type: Refill sherry butt

Outturn: 620

Abv: 52.9%

Colour: 10YR 7/8

Nose: Strawberry, plum pie, cinnamon bread, raspberry jam, funk, lemon-lime soda

Initial nose is a light amount of strawberry, some plum and butter notes, and then some buttery, spice forward bread.

Given some water, a big funk and effervescent notes pop up. Which I was not expecting at all.

Taste: Caramel, brine, orange, banana bread/funk

More of that funk. The taste is pretty… meh. For all the age and everything, and for what the nose was selling, I thought there’d be more. That said, there’s some big banana bread and funk in there, which perks it all up.

Finish: Ginger, pecan, cardamon, lemon-lime soda, basil

Finish is a proper pecan spice pie and a side of 7 Up. Totally not sponsored, by the way. Big pecan pie won’t answer my calls after the brown sugar incident.

Nice grassy note at the end. Probably the only thing that could hint this was an Aultmore. Maybe. I don’t know, this is my third one.

Conclusion: An interesting dram that is nice to nose. The taste was a let down, save for a bunch of funk, and the finish is the closest it gets to an Aultmore profile. I see why they sold the cask, I see why they bottled this, and I can see the fun. I just think it took too long to get there, and thus could be better.

So if you’re a big nose fan, then congrats on finding your fetish. Also this may be a whisky to have with your big nosed SO.

80/100

Guess: Ledaig?

Actually: Aultmore SMWS 73.69 “Dark side eclipsed by sweet joys”

Scotch review #829, Speyside review #236, Whisky Network review #1340