Tasting note by Best of Wines

Dirty Whisky

As every year a bottle of The Duchess just needs to be part of the Blind Tasting Competition, and this year we selected a wonderful Ben Nevis to do that job. We really love this style of whisky, where fruitiness and funky hints come together. Though with this dram we encountered a wink more into the direction of the "Funk" rather than the fruitiness. Though it is there, and certainly could have nudged you in te right direction...

COLOUR
Pale gold
NOSE
Warm, and very present. At first whiff there is some glue, but they quickly develop into hints of leather, walnuts and something greasy along with notes of Lapsang Souchong tea. Later hints of lemon and baked apples. The alcohol is rather sharp in the nose and it needs a drop of water to mellow out and reveal its true complexity.
PALATE
Wonderful funky business! Hints of salted caramel, more of the leather notes as well as some liquorice. The taste gets more of the friendlier notes though such as apricots and peaches along with caramelized apples and pure chocolate, but the dirtiness and funkiness remains on the palate as well.
FINISH
It goes right back to the complete dirty style with some waxy mouthfeel and again the lemon aromas. It even seems like a bit of mint is coming through making the whisky dirty and fresh at the same time!

CONCLUSION
Ben Nevis is known for both its very fruity whiskies, as well as its crazy funk-bombs. This one certainly is the latter with its flavour palate going in every direction from lemons to motor oil. The complete funky flavour palate and lack of peat should have easily pointed into the direction of Ben Nevis. Though I'm not surprised if many people would have guessed Clynelish or Springbank here. Both distilleries have a lot of similarities with Ben Nevis, and with this funky "dirty" style, especially the association with Springbank is easily made.