Single Cask Nation Undisclosed Islay 7 Year 2008, 2nd Release (Refill Bourbon Hogshead)

Tasting notes: 
The nose here reveals the vegetal part of the peat: the grasses, the soft mosses and heathers. There is no iodine here, and it is exceptionally clean. We also got notes of charred green logs that had been sterilized and then coated in a thick layer of translucent caramel. If there were a brand new, huge, antiseptically clean upper-end chain hotel on Islay, this would be what it would smell like to sit next to the fireplace in its ultra-mod lobby. Actually, the nose here could be rebranded as “Eau de Hebridean Cougar,” the scent all the middle-aged women on Islay wear when they go out on the town in Port Askaig.

The mouth is like one successfully sucked the spirit through a burnt cedar log. A cedar hookah could have produced this mouth, but only with the pine tar flavored tobacco. But the flavors are brighter than that. Imagine a spirit that, after producing the distillate and aging it and in an attempt to add smoky flavor, someone just burned the whole distillery down around it. Now imagine having an even clearer view of the Paps of Jura as a result. What’s that? Yes, there are three Paps. And yes, that does remind me of Total Recall as well.

The finish is classic, delicious, straight Islay. Exhaling it is like being downwind from a Game of Thrones giant using a redwood as a menthol cigarette. It’s simultaneously dark and resinous and bright and clean. It’s officially undisclosed, but even if you knew, it’d be elusive and enigmatic. Like all Single Cask Nation bottlings, this one defies its categorization and sits comfortably somewhere you never before knew existed.
 
 
Rating:

–Our thanks to Single Cask Nation for the sample!