Springbank 12 Years Old Cask Strength Batch 16 56.3% NV

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Serge Valentin (91)

Colour: gold.

Nose: Wow, kaffir lime, coconut, soot, embrocations, salted peanuts, some grizzly peat, smoky bacon, some kind of rather tropical-edged saison beer and smoked mussels. Goes on with chalk, preserved lemons, waxes, salted liquorice and anchovy paste. With water: some kind of smoky muesli. Notes of warm grist, lamp oil, sack cloth and a few green apple peelings and some good quality pear cider (perry).

Mouth: immensely oily and fatty, all on diesel fumes, boiler smoke, tar liqueur, beach pebbles, kelp, rope, fishing nets, various ointments and a lick of antiseptic. Also aspirin, chalk and squid ink. With water: more coconut, toasted this time and with lots of antiseptic, light medicine, some roasted game meats, lanolin, bay leaf, lemon thyme and a little green banana.

Finish: Long, medical, coastal, oily, slightly fishy in a good way, black pepper, more liquorice and a little briny note.

Comments: Always an essential bottling in my view. And, after such a run of drams, I think it’s safe to say that while Springbank was always putting out totally stunning whiskies, its base distillate really improved since the early 1990s.