Decadent Drams ‘Old Style Sherrywood Malt Whisky’ Blended Malt 23 yo
‘Guaranteed 23 Years Old’ (Filled 2001 – bottled 2024)
Sherrywood
587 bottles
45.1% abv

Damn. Old school. Like… ‘one-room schoolhouse’ old school. This is cherry brandy run through a coal miner’s work shirt; a 1930s train engine mechanic’s Pall Mall extinguished in a wedge of black forest cake; a back alley Turkish coffee to wash down a fistful of black cherries and pomegranate seeds; scorched licorice root dipped in engine oil and Buckleys elixir, used to muddle mixed berries. Very cool. Very challenging. Very much my style. More of these please.

From the back of the bottle: “This Decadent Drams bottling is a single sherry butt of Blended Malt ‘2001’. As we understand it, this blended malt stock was actually ‘filled’ in 2001 using a mix of component malts, most of whish were considerably older at the time, which probably explains its rather old school, classical sherry profile.” And just to up the intrigue, this was then re-racked into an ex-Ardbeg sherry butt for about a year. That 45.1% is cask strength, by the way.

Nose: weighty; Sunrype fruit bars; coffee grounds and potting soil; jams or maybe jammy dodgers; campfire pies; flaming brand new woolen socks; tea; menth.ol; soft licorice; blueberry. Palate: chewy but dry (like ground up Oreo wafers); vaguely medicinal; dirty dulce de lecce; more Oreo wafers smeared or stuffed with jams; a slight soapy undertone; some slightly over-oxidized notes that remind of old sherries (and maybe last-gasp, dump-the-remains port wines, too). Finish: long and muddy, but the fruits remain with a dry cocoa ashy-ness. Thoughts: a heavier, more primordial style; the Ardbeg influence is really only present on the palate, I find (altogether more Ardmore-ish than Ardbeggian; one to drink late at night in a remote Scottish bothy with a rough fire smoldering away to fight off the chill; balanced… so oddly, seemingly incongruously, balanced. 89.5/100

(CR)