Linkwood SMWS 39.92 1990/2014 49.5%
Here’s another distillery that you and I would not have easy access to but for the independent bottlers and their aged stock. In truth there’s a lot of it around (6 stills!) but again, it feeds the blends. Well the blends have to get their whisky from somewhere…
(Photo credit – Teardust at flickriver)
Linkwood, like Clynelish, is a tale of two distilleries, a new Linkwood was built next to the old in 1971. There is some confusion which was called Linkwood A or B, but in any case, the old Linkwood was closed in 1985, with partial production from 1990 to keep the stills in working order. The old Linkwood was finally demolished in 2013, and the stills moved to an extension to new linkwood where they operate as just one Linkwood.
The above is only significant if you HAVE to know where your vintage Linkwood came from. But as the newmake was mixed before barelling, all this really doesn’t mean much. Whoops.
(Photo credit to a jambox998 – sorry man yours is the only picture around.)
Nose: Aromatic pine and woody resins. Full of dry leather, dried dark fruit. So yes, sherry in its dry aromatic guise. Also perfumy incense, black tea – no sugar please. And lots and lots of festive spices. Beautifully light and complex sherry nose as opposed to heavy sweetness.
Palette: Sweeter here, with juicy purple fruit and plum skins. Again these resinous dry bark/ old wood notes and Christmas spices. Would have been too much but there’s also some sappiness plus licorice and cocoa powder.
Finish: Long and sweetly plummy, spice and cocoa.
I liked this a lot. Very befitting of the season to boot. Who said light spirit in sherry butts spells overkill? It just needs to be the right butt..
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