Edradour 10 2007 SFTC Burgundy Cask Matured

This year for my birthday my wife wanted to get me something interesting. So she picked out a Ballechin from a store that had no reviews.

The store ended up selling us the incorrect bottle. By the time it came in, turns out that reviews had popped up. And the difference in score was quite substantial. To the positive side. Also the price was better in my favour.

Thus we have a bottle of Edradour 10 2007 SFTC Burgundy Cask Matured.

This is from the Straight From the Cask, or SFTC (which hopefully you don’t say out loud in public or people will worry you’re having a stroke), is their unfiltered, completely cask strength offering. This one was completely matured in ex-Burgundy red wine casks.

Red wine casks typically act very similar to sherry casks. But I’m picky with those, as I’m jaded. How will this one taste?

Price: N/A at the LCBO

Region: Highland

Vintage: 17.10.2007

Bottled: 11.01.2018

Cask Type: Burgundy

Cask number: 344

Number of bottles: 411

Abv: 56.9%

Colour: 10YR 7/10

Nose: Char, peaches, grassy, strawberry, peanut, white cake icing

Initial char and that Edradour/Highland profile. Nice grassiness, quite sweet. Some nuttiness. This seems pretty straight forward, but it’s just so pleasant.

Taste: Caramel, mushrooms, butter, jerk seasoning, strawberry peach

Strong caramel, which is surprising given that this has been aged in only ex-red wine. You’d suspect that the malt would give in to the flavours, but… no, it’s still very much Edradour.

That said there’s spice, buttery, and even lovely fruits. Mushroom shouldn’t work here. I should be annoyed to it.

Finish: Butter, medium roast coffee, vanilla/floral, grassy/anise, mint, cashew, peach

Lovely earth/spice/coffee notes. Amazing nutty, amazingly deep, keeps giving up a ton of flavours. That said, I’m a big spices fan. What with growing up in a WASP household and not finding out about them until Autumn or later in life.

Conclusion: What a surprising tasty dram. Mushroom sticks out like a sore thumb in the taste. I didn’t hate it, but seriously it’s not helping anything. Otherwise this is completely fun to have.

If you’re a fan of the spice/earth, if you like a good complexity, if you’re still looking for a good SFTC release, this clicks all of those. After the last bottle I purchased, I didn’t expect to enjoy this, and for it to be just unique. Instead it just kept getting better.

85/100

Scotch review #1098, Highland review #184, Whisky review #1701