Brora 23, Signatory Vintage, 1981-2005, Sherry butt no. 1555, 209/535, 58.2% abv.

The bartender recommended this bottling over all his other Brora bottlings, and it wasn't expensive relative to other bottles. Said it had the best performance. Haha, also a bonili import, I wonder if that makes this bottle stupendously more expensive?

Nose: up close I get freshly cut grass with lemons, extremely vegetative, honey coated long bush leaves, at a distance I get strawberries, background of smoked meats, foundation of honey. This is turning out to be more complicated than I initially thought.

Palate: initial palate is salted vegetables, hot spices, mid palate has spices, vegetative, but the back palate is where all the action is. The back is quite salty, but more like intense salted meats (German smoked ham hocks) and salted fishes (Korean and Japanese open dried sardines or yellow corvina skins), wood is in there too and perhaps some coconuts on the back end that hides until the end of the finish.

Finish: long, has a dull bitterness initially, changes to toasted cinnaboms without the glaze so I guess a form of mellow cinnamon, hints of smoke here and there.

Totally did not feel like a 58% abv dram. I am beginning to think Brora is not for me, the grass-like flavor profile isn't my style and although there is a supporting cast of differing flavors and aromas, mostly revolving around salted smoke, it doesn't have enough to tickle my fancy. It is an excellent alterntive to the world of sherries and smoke though. If anything, I would have thought this was a young, modern Lowland distillate. Maybe I need to try more Brora.

Grade: B-

Image courtesy of Eric Yee.

Eric Yee

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