I won this at auction for a very affordable price as far as older single cask Campbeltown Scotch goes around my parts. Plus, I had a nice encounter with the Glen Scotia Double Cask so I wanted to see what age and cask strength could do with Glen Scotia. I did not do a lot of research or I would have found out this particular cask is quite infamous for reasons that will show up quite clearly in the review.

Distillery: Glen Scotia

Region: Campbeltown

Price: ~150USD

Cask Type: Sherry(?) butt

ABV: 53.6%

Chill-filtered: No

Color: 1.3, russet muscat (natural colour).

Rested for ~15 minutes, before drunk neat in a glencairn.

Nose: Poached pear, apple juice, dried plums, icing sugar, kefir, custard, coffee-dusted sweet bun, all very pleasant, but after that comes a revolting full-blown rotten egg sulfur that cuts short the enjoyment. It invasively shoves itself up your nose. The first pour was a drain pour after it made me gag. But from the third pour onwards it has become a lot more tame and only perks up intermittently - it never quite disappears but only peaks from time to time. Either I have acclimatised, need to justify my purchase, or the air has helped. FWIW, my S/O nosed this and thought it smelt really rich, sweet and earthy like a Glendronach. And she has a good nose. Meanwhile, two friends who drammed this thought it was stinky and dirty but to the same degree a Longrow is (which all three of us enjoy to varying degrees), just a different presentation. So YMMV.

Palate: Dry, full of cloudy funky apple cider, pineapple jam, toffee, malt, sulfur occasionally makes me pucker up.

Finish: Long, none of the sulfur here thankfully, grape juice, sarsaparilla, Russian medovik honey cake, toffee, vanilla. Surprisingly elegant, cohesive, rich, finely-differentiated and long-lasting considering the rough edges on the nose and palate.

Conclusion: It is one of the better finishes I have had in a long time. Quite a unique and tasty one. This, plus the flavours that exist as a distinct layer below the invasive sulfur on the nose and palate, and the fact that the sulfur does recede a fair bit after the neck pour, means it is not completely awful. But definitely one for the brave and sulfur-insensitive. A braver soul could perhaps experiment with trying to extract some of the sulfur out with copper. If you do search online, there is a lot of talk about how incredibly sulfured this cask was, and how it was depleted much more slowly than other Cadenhead's casks sold at the warehouse tasting. The sulfur here does make me want to try the infamous Valinch and Mallet vomit Bruichladdich 15yo to see if its worse.

If it were named by the SMWS: The Russian Inquisition

Score: 81

Scotch Review #39, Whiskey Network Review #41

H.Y.