Tomatin 18yo
Oloroso Sherry Casks Official Bottling | 46% ABV
Score: 9/10
Exceptional.
TL;DR
Chewy, dense, and a straight up lovely sherried dram
Masterclass in Balance
Life is about balance. Yes, we all know that phrase, or at least the many versions of it, but it is often something people chase. Some chase it their entire lives, others grab the fleeting moments of it when the stars align and some semblance of balance is achieved. Yoga, meditation, running, cycling, video games, reading a book, grabbing a cuppa, whatever it is, we humans often chase the elusive balance.
I’ve been comparatively silent on Dramface over the past few months. Not out of lack of whiskies to sip and savour, but out of time. I’ve been sacrificing my Dramface writing time to focus on my workload, which is usually quite intense in Q4, and house renovations. My wife and I host a large annual Christmas/year end soiree for friends and friends of friends that is usually very well attended. This year, due to some plumbing issues, we were forced to renovate over a third of our main floor.
I’m quite the handy fellow and do all our own renovations in our house. Moving walls? Sure thing. Moving plumbing and electrical. No problem. Building custom cabinets. Yup, I can handle it. What that means is that we save a ridiculous amount of money and while it might seem like extra work for some, it helps quieten my mind. My day job is very mentally intensive, however I can often achieve some mental and physical balance when turning my brain off and building things with my hands, often working on my “second job” into the late hours of the evening. Some friends and family call me crazy but to me, it gives more energy than it takes away.
So where does this balance component come in? Well, I was given extremely late notice for a week-long work trip for Netherlands to assist in some laser welding activities for a client of mine, so I was forced to take what flights were available to me from Canada, and I discover that the world and its karma work in interesting ways.
When selecting a flight, lo and behold, the first class/business class seats were the same price as the mere peasant seats at the back of the plane. This suited me just fine because for the previous four weeks, I’d been pulling 55-hour work weeks to get many projects moving towards their finish line, including this particular project which was anything but balanced and was more akin to disorganised chaos.
So, as I’m sitting here in the incredibly opulent pod at the front of the plane, it’s given me time to achieve further balance by writing. Rather than sleeping the entire 8+ hour flight and before a full workday that starts soon after I land, I’m approaching my week-long busyness more centred and balanced. It’s also quite fitting that I’m writing about a whisky which I find is also quite balanced.
In today’s age of heavy sherry-laden cloaks draped over simple malts, we can sometimes find those who are doing it right. Bold words I know, especially for a liquid that is meant to be consumed and is subject to our own opinions after all. My statement could thus be easily dismissed, chocked up to conjecture and the prattling of someone who fancies Tomatin.
But hear me out before you grab your pitchforks.
What defines balance in whisky? We see it claimed in all manners of advertisements, official tasting notes, and reviews such as this one. To go one step further than these other communication mediums, I’ll attempt to define a “balanced whisky” so you can understand my point of view.
To me, for a whisky to be balanced, it must be like a good, blended whisky. What do I mean when blends have such a varying and dare I say dirty reputation these days? I mean that the whisky must be greater than the sum of its parts, carefully crafted to walk the tightrope between spirit character, in-barrel esterification, and barrel influence. Any “finishes” or secondary/tertiary barrel usage must be sufficiently integrated into the previous whisky liquid, not smeared across the base whisky like an extra thick layer of frosting to cover up any lack of character..
Review
Tomatin 18 yo 2021/04/27 bottling, 46% ABV
~£110, Price Paid $125 CAD (£75) in 2021
Per Ben’s (Whisky Geek) tour at the distillery sometime in the early 2020s, Graham Eunson states that while the label might state 18 years, the majority of the whisky is much older, with an average age of around 23 years.
Now for some confusion:
Tomatin website states “matured in traditional oak casks and first-fill Oloroso Sherry butts”.
Interwebs states “15 years in ex-bourbon hoggies, followed by a minimum of 3 years in Oloroso sherry casks”.
Graham Eunson is on record (per Whisky Geek’s video) that “at least 90% of the whisky has been finished in sherry or fully matured in sherry, with a combination of Oloroso sherry and a small amount of Pedro Ximenez sherry”.
So if we read between the lines and squint hard enough, we might be able to estimate that 80-85% of the whisky is a 3-8 year “finish”, around 5% of the whisky is fully matured in sherry, and the remaining balance (~10%) is 3-8 year old refill sherry “finish”.
Score: 9/10
Exceptional.
TL;DR
Chewy, dense, and a straight up lovely sherried dram
Nose
Decadent and quality, as much as I detest that word when it’s commonly used in its snobbish form. Reminds me of walking into a mix of a fudge shop, patisserie, and cookie specialty shop. It’s the dense sweetness mingling with fruitiness that transports my consciousness to these locales.
Brown sugar, cooked dates, fresh raisins, vanilla, baked apples and peaches, and subtle nuttiness with baking spices. That’s the individual notes but together, let’s see if I can articulate this. Raisin butter tarts (it’s a North American thing), peach danish drizzled with icing, baked apple crisp, and walnut and almond date loaf are the dominant composite flavours. Chewy gingersnap cookies and proper Christmas cake with candied oranges dotted throughout are secondary food items. You can tell the whisky has spent a significant amount of time in the sherry casks. It’s not sherry draped over a malt but rather a well integrated form.
Palate
Rich, chewy, luscious, and dense. It’s what you hope the palate experience would be for a well-aged whisky. Sticky toffee pudding, booze-soaked raisins, walnuts and almonds dotted within a sweet loaf, singed orange peel, and honey. Light touch of leatheriness, damp library mustiness (I know that’s a smell thing, but it’s what I believe that location to taste like, not the mushroomy dampness type of musty), ginger and cinnamon, and cooked dates. While the nose is more along the fresher fruitier side of things, the palate is very much along the oxidised, darker, and older vein.
After several successive sips, Tomatin’s trademark fruitiness just pokes its head out, appearing as peaches and tinned apricots to me. It’s very impressive that a dram this laden with quality sherry still retains some spirit character. It’s a testament to Tomatin that this delicate balancing act is achieved.
There’s a certain chewiness to this that reminds me of a mix of dried fruit leather and chewy ginger snap cookies while there’s a delicate oiliness and lengthy finish to the mouthfeel. Bravo.
The Dregs
When is a finish not a finish? Given the SWA and many global regulations surrounding minimum age, plus the current trend of new distilleries releasing pleasing 3-5 year old whiskies, one could argue that 3 years provides sufficient maturation time to qualify as whisky. Or alternatively, 3 years could be used as a demarcation between a “finish” and “maturation”. For example: if the whisky has been in a different cask for less than 3 years, it could qualify as a finish while that same whisky could be claimed to be partially matured in the different cask when going over 3 years.
From an oblique and high-level perspective, the logic does track. At a minimum of 3 years, sufficient oxidation, refinement, and all manner of organic chemistry geekery should have significantly altered the structure and makeup of the whisky, qualifying it as a unique product different from its initial clear form. When applied to a second cask or “finishing”-type scenario, the minimum 3 years should result in an appreciably different and integrated whisky than the whisky that went into the second cask. Under 3 years and given the rather temperature and slower maturation profile of Scottish warehouses, the previous cask’s incumbents may not be fully matured or integrated into the new whisky. We can often find these faults in new distilleries and their sub-5 year products that have a fortified wine influence draped over the whisky, so why can’t we apply this to some 10 or 12 yo whiskies who’ve had a 12-24 mo finishing period?
“More than 6 years? That’s not a finish, that’s another maturation.”
Patrick van Zuidam, Owner/Head Distillery of Millstone, sharing his thoughts on finishing over a dram
This is obviously a thought-piece and one person’s perspective but it is a question that everyone should consider when spending your money on a whisky. Are you paying for a finish, or maturation? Are you paying for a bodega’s product (ie. seasoned sherry cask), or the time, patience, and effort a whisky maker put into letting the flavours integrate and become something more.
When we find those that are doing things differently, a la old school like Tomatin here, we should highlight these distilleries and whisky makers for they are keeping the true spirit of whisky alive rather than getting finished off by the young upstarts who are all flash and less substance.
Score: 9/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. BB
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