This is my last review of a good flight I had of single casks at The Writing Club @thewritingclubsg, a great intimate whisky bar with a lovely selection. The single casks were bottled for their 4th anniversary and offered as a flight of a 12yo Craigellachie, a young funky 7yo Laphroaig, and this 10yo Tamnavulin. Tamnavulin's OBs have never interested me due to their low strength and NAS, middling reviews and overall obscurity. But how will a single cask cask strength IB fare?

Distillery: Tamnavulin

Region: Speyside

Price: ~14USD/30ml

Cask Type: Ex-bourbon

ABV: 51.4%

Chill-filtered: No

Color: 0.3, pale gold.

Rested for about 15 minutes, before savoured slowly, neat in a snifter.

Nose: Apricots, mangosteen, rambutans, oatmeal, a touch of chicken gravy in the empty glass.

Palate: Great texture, liquorice, loquat, creme brulee char, grape skin tannins.

Finish: Just a touch of honey meat glaze, cereal, lychees, a bit more liquorice.

Conclusion: The nose is very perfumed, with the fresh juicy tropical fruits front and centre. I like the balance between fruity sweet, sugary sweet and the liquorice/char/tannins cutting through it. It is a full-bodied dram that drinks easily, but has solid depth of flavour. Speysiders are less polarising IMO but standing out amongst a relatively homogeneous field of light fruitiness without going all-out to defy the paradigm (e.g. Craigellachie) is not an easy feat. This was my favourite of the flight, but the bar's best bottling I've tried remains an excellent 16yo Irish Cooley which was dripping with white chocolate.

If it were named by the SMWS: Loquacious Liquorice

Score: 88

Scotch Review #33, Whiskey Network Review #35

H.Y.