When you like "sherry bombs", one of the must-have items is a small batch strength from TAMDHU.

Everything is a great distillation experience (more than 100 years of experience even if the company has had some closures and reopenings), a beautiful bottle with a rococo look and above all a whisky worthy of the name in the power of its sherry cask.

The fourth version does not change the situation and remains at the same level as its three predecessors with world prizes (3 years gold medals at the SFWSC in San-Francisco for batch 1, 2 and 3 anyway).

The recipe is the same, you take a distillate made on the banks of the famous Spey River and pass it through two of the distillery's six stills and leave it, for a period that only the cellar master knows, only in sherry oloroso barrels (you know the barrels painted in cart blue). 

You then pass everything from the barrel to the bottle without a drop of water and that's it.

That's the setting. And in a glass, what does it look like?

I will use an expression that is dear to me: Power and glory!

In the glass no doubt possible. This whisky is as dark as sherry is a white wine. It is a clearly amber-brown liquid charged by the molecules of the aromatic compounds of mixed wood and sherry.

When you stick your nose in the glass, you're not disappointed. 

The combination of power (57.8% still) and glory (sherry) has a strong effect. 

It takes full force of spices and wood aromas. Once it has taken a first charge but has regained a little air, the nose discovers much silkier smells closer to vanilla (as sweet and sweet as the first ones are strong). We'll get closer here to a cake out of the oven. A third passage will remind you more of citrus-like aromas (an orangette for example).

Of course, given the olfactory approach, we suspect that we are not going to have a flat whisky. 

 As soon as it entered the mouth, the liquid invaded and took its place. The palate is full of spices and woody aromas of sherry. Nevertheless, once the fire has calmed down, it is the softness and mellowness of a caramel biscuit that is positioned and gives this powerful whisky a certain sweetness.

What I like about cask strength (or batch strength in this case) is that it allows you to make the whisky you want, gradually adding water until you reach the desired taste. Here the addition of water obviously reduces its strength but above all brings out its pastry character and orange aromas.

Nevertheless, whether or not it is added with water, this whisky leaves a beautiful and long lasting memory of raisins and brown sugar in the mouth, as if it clung to our throat to remember us for a long time!

 Power and glory!