Springbank 27 Years Old 1969 Signatory Vintage Dumpy 51.8% 1969

Professional reviews

Serge Valentin (93)

From a sherry cask. There are several casks of 1969 by Signatory and thanks to a good friend, we’ll try all the other ones in the foreseeable future.

Colour: full gold.

Nose: a much more austere version, flintier, waxier, drier, more ‘fino’ in style at first nosing. It’s only after a few minutes that it gets fruitier and fresher, with first some ripe apples and pears, and second bananas and coconuts (but less coconut than in the ’71.) The least ‘wham-bam’ so far. With water: very different from the other ones indeed but just as spectacular once diluted. Subtler this time, more on herbs, teas, then tropical fruits, ripe mangos, wood smoke. Big whiffs of fresh hazelnuts. Oranges. Su-perb.

Mouth (neat): wham! Huge citrusy notes, combining lemons, tangerines, oranges, crystallised citrons, kumquats… right, right, let’s not list them all. All that is complemented with many soft spices and a rather unusual kind of bitterness that I quite like. Liquorice juice? Spectacular so far. With water: more honey, oranges and beeswax. Fab.

Finish: very long, very firm, more on dates and pepper. Some lemon at the retro-olfaction, keeps it very much alive (and kicking!)

Comments: all these old Springbanks are hard to beat. I believe every whisky newbie should try hard putting his hands on one bottle or one sample, anybody needs references.