Tomatin 14yo (port cask finish) – 46%

In April Tomatin introduced this new 14yo whisky to market…

“Having spent around 13 years in the finest Bourbon oak barrels, this whisky has spent a year in specially  selected Portuguese port pipes which had previously held  Tawny port for between 30 and 40 years. The result is an  excellent dram which is soft and smooth with a port-influenced  sweetness.”

Colour: Golden with faint reddy pink hues.

Nose: It’s Tomatin, but rather more fruity than you might be used to (certainly if you’re expecting this to be anything like the 15yo). Packed along with the malt notes are plums and late summer berries, it’s a sweet and inviting nose.

Palate: It’s fairly oily and mouth coating (it’s not chill filtered after all), and it introduces it’s self fairly smoothly and builds to a slight fizz / sherbet. It’s sweet, but not too much, there’s a fair drop of honey and wood along with the malt and stewed late summer berries you found on the nose. Yum!

Finish: The finish is warming and fairly fresh, lingering wood notes amongst the fizzy sweet fruit, and it lasts a long time with your chest getting warmer and warmer until it fades leaving blackberries and red berries on your palate.

Water: Water helps brings out slight toffee vanilla notes, only pop a drop in tho!

Thoughts: Great stuff from Tomatin, it’s recognisable but most definitely different and a very successful addition to the range, it almost makes me not miss the deleted 15yo (almost), but really it’s just different from the 15yo so slightly hard to directly compare.

Available: The Whisky Exchange – £48.95

Thanks to Tomatin for the sample.