The Toshan Man

Rice Pudding

Another cask from the Auchentoshan visitor center is this Auchentoshan 1999, bottled in 213. It is, like his predecessor, bourbon cask matured, cask 2052. I try it from a bottle of 20cl that my buddy Niek brought back on the 10^th of June. That way I can keep the full bottle that I got from Emile – signed by Distillery Manager Alisdair McDonald and bottled at 1^st July 2013 – closed for a little while longer.

The nose is aromatic on lemon juice, straw, icing sugar and breakfast cereal. Grain cookies with a hint of nuts and dried fruit. Softly spiced on vanilla, ginger and a touch of liquorice. Lime zest. In the back, I detect some coconut, which comes to the fore if you add a few drops of water.

Nice body and immediately spicy. Ginger is accompanied by white pepper, vanilla evolves towards rice pudding. Again loads of citrus, almost obligatory in Auchentoshan. And this one absolutely does not need water, but can take it well. The citrus then becomes a tad sharper, as does the pepper.

The sweet and spicy finish lasts pretty long.

It does not come as a big surprise that it shows lots of similarities with cask 165 that I have just tried, but I find this one to be more round and accessible.