Penderyn 7 Year (SMWS 128.14 "The Tiger's Eye")

 

I really love the two bottles of Penderyn I've had so far - both young, brash, bursting with personality and flavor, both mildly funky with a "tomato vine/Bloody Mary mix" note, both cask strength yet endlessly quaffable. So when the Scotch Malt Whisky Society ("SMWS") finally released a couple Penderyn bottles of their own, I snapped them up. 

Here are the official notes on the first one: 

A wonderful golden to red-brown colour similar to a gemstone called Tiger’s eye caught our attention at first. Big, expressive, tropical fruit aromas as well as brown sugar brandy butter, ginger biscuits and brandy snaps made this an engaging experience. On the palate - deliciously dense, creamy dark chocolate crémeux (custard-based ganache) with crunchy nut praline and caramel sauce spiked with amaretto. With water, we swirled bramble jam into heavy vanilla custard but there was also an exotic, woody, almost other-worldly aroma at work, while to taste now - as smooth as you like chocolate cherry rum cake with meringue butter cream.

Delectable description! Also - I have to note - SMWS really gave both these bottles proper good nicknames. I like "The Tiger's Eye" as a name quite a bit - colorful, mysterious! - and wish this kind of effort went into every bottle. No more of the "Lovely and Delicious" please, I beg you!

Aged 7 years in a second fill Oloroso sherry cask, bottled at 61.4% ABV. Let's go (in our imaginations) to Wales and sample some whisky...

Nose: Powerful alcohol fumes, wood polish on old wood, brown sugar or molasses, powdered ginger, coffee grounds, dark 90%+ chocolate. Behind everything is the expected "farmyard" note - a vegetal funk that reminds me, still, of tomato vines - but it comes and goes. 

Mouthfeel: Medium, a little silky/oily. 

Palate: Big traditional sherry flavor with chocolate, taffy candy, leather, almond/marzipan, tropical fruit (chocolate-covered coconut), more wood polish/old wood notes, and more buttery brown sugar, more chocolate ganache. Young, but full of flavor... quite a robust young whisky. The chocolate and wood polish together make it seem older than it is. 

Finish: Chocolate, coffee, wood tannins, ginger pepper. 

Verdict: A surprisingly chocolate-dense sherry bomb from Penderyn, with only some of the vegetal/tomato funk I usually get from them. It must have been a very active sherry cask indeed... but despite being 7 years young, I really enjoyed this. Quite a lovely whisky. Would be a great dessert offering!