Springbank Local Barley 2018 9 years old

This is the only Springbank local barley I've managed to grab a bottle of. My attempts at grabbing other releases have not been succesful. They're available at auction at twice the RRP on release. But I stubbornly refuse to line a bottle flippers pockets.

Anyway onto the whisky. I've had this bottle open for nearly a year. I've taken my time with it and it's nearly all disappeared now. The colour on it is absolutely incredible. It is light but at the same time seems to glow. I've never seen a whisky before so vibrantly yellow. I took a photo but it didn't do it justice.

I find it works best with a couple of teaspoons of water in a 50ml pour.

Nose

Strawfields. It smells like standing next to a field of straw in summer. Wrigleys spearmint chewing gum. White wine vinegar.

Palate

Oily and mouthcoating with that spearmint again on the arrival. Then it develops into golden grahams cereal. A slight earthiness. A little peat and quite a long finish with the mint and peat fighting it out with each other.

Overall

Not hugely complex but nonetheless delicious and different. It's unlike any other whisky I've had. You can drink it neat but a bit of water just removes the heat on arrival. It's developed a lot in the time the bottle has been open too. The first dram was very peaty and farmy and reminded me of Ledaig. It's mellowed over time.

Honestly this is great whisky. If distilleries can get such different results by using different barley types you have to wonder why they all don't experiment more? The fact that these local barleys evapourate from shelves on release indicates there is a market for this kind of thing and people are prepared to pay a premium for it. This cost me £80. Which is quite a lot for a 9 year old. Distilleries devote so much time trying to locate a half decent cask. They should expirement a bit more with the product before it goes into the wood imo.

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