Gauntleys 1880 Collection
Bottled for Gauntleys of Nottingham by Brave New Spirits – sample at 61.5% Bourbon, transferred to 1st fill Cognac Barrique on 22/05/22 (16 months) Cask 22008001 Dist: 08/11/16 Btl: After 8/11/24 Tasted: Sept 2024 The nose is delicately smoky and crisp with crunchy apple and pear along with warm, baked apple and vanilla. The Cognac cask influence is noticeable but not overwhelming. With time hints of ginger spice and pepper. For a relatively young spirit it’s pleasantly rounded and complex.
The palate opens with oxidised/ baked apple, tar, peat and hints of citrus. It develops sweeter apple, and sweeter peat notes along with barley and vanilla on the middle. Masked but tarry, coffee’d and appley finish with lingering smoke, oily barley and tar.
With water the nose is still smoky but softer and more rounded. Delicately oily with a little mentholated note now. The palate is less smoky and spicy with a little more vanilla and crisp minerals, which linger through the finish. Overall, it displays a lovely balance of cask and distillery character. Sweet peat and tar after-taste.
Gauntleys of Nottingham The 1880 Collection: The Officers Mess Bottling No4 Ardmore 2016 (8 years old) 60.4%
Bottled for Gauntleys of Nottingham by Brave New Spirits – sample at 61.5% Bourbon, transferred to 1st fill Cognac Barrique on 22/05/22 (16 months) Cask 22008001 Dist: 08/11/16 Btl: After 8/11/24 Tasted: Sept 2024 The nose is delicately smoky and crisp with crunchy apple and pear along with warm, baked apple and vanilla. The Cognac cask influence is noticeable but not overwhelming. With time hints of ginger spice and pepper. For a relatively young spirit it’s pleasantly rounded and complex.
The palate opens with oxidised/ baked apple, tar, peat and hints of citrus. It develops sweeter apple, and sweeter peat notes along with barley and vanilla on the middle. Masked but tarry, coffee’d and appley finish with lingering smoke, oily barley and tar.
With water the nose is still smoky but softer and more rounded. Delicately oily with a little mentholated note now. The palate is less smoky and spicy with a little more vanilla and crisp minerals, which linger through the finish. Overall, it displays a lovely balance of cask and distillery character. Sweet peat and tar after-taste.