(46% ABV, UCF, natural colour – 2017/2018 vintage, bottled 31.05.2021, 65% STR Red wine casks, 35% Ex-bourbon casks, 5040 bottles)
After last week’s round of applause for Ardnamurchan, it’s time to pay their next door neighbours from Nc’Nean a visit. Indeed, both distilleries are located in the western highlands, quite close to one another, albeit on opposite sides of Loch Sunart, making the quickest route between the two still a 90 minutes’ drive using the ferry. Apart from being located close to each other, both are also taking the environmental impact part of their disillery very seriously. Nc’Nean uses only organic malted barley, and strives to make all aspects of production as environmentally friendly as possible, by using a wood chip boiler and by recycling waste heath through their climate and temperature controlled warehouses. Like Ardnamurchan, they take environmental awareness at the heart of what they do, and on their website explain in detail how they manage to do so. Which is cool. So, without as going as far as calling it a trend, there’s definitely something happening with the ‘new wave’ of Scottish distilleries and the way they approach their business model in terms of environmental impact. I’m not by any means the diehard eco warrior type, but seeing young businesses embracing today’s technologies to help preventing this planet going to crap, I absolutely applaud them for it.
Like all of their other ‘batch releases’, batch 7 consists of 5040 bottles, coming from 65% STR red wine casks and 35% ex-bourbon casks. Taking into account their production capacity is roughly some 100,000 LPA, a bottle of Nc’Nean retails around €50-€65, making it similarly priced to what Ardnamurchan goes for. In my opinion that’s already about as much as is fair for a 3 – 4 yo whisky. As we’re currently at batch 9, it’s safe to say there’s no shortage of Nc’Nean out there, so ‘up yours’, flippers.
On the nose, the first thing that springs to mind is ‘floral’ – with a mixture of delicate, soft and sweet flower notes and some ‘dirtier’ geranium/greenhouse floral notes as well. Herbaceous too, with notes of sage and parsley. The wine cask influence shows up with some clear raisin notes, along with some honey and citrus, perfumed soapiness, and nutty touches of almond and hazelnuts. A nice balance between sweet and sour overall. As this is already a quite delicate and light whisky, I only added a few tiny drops of water, which seem to accentuate the floral notes.
On the palate it’s pretty much again what the nose told me, with floral and herbaceous notes leading the way. The sweetness again driven by the raisin notes, backed up by soft notes of honey and honeysuckle and a light vanilla. Quite spirity and grainy/ceral too – there’s no mistaking this being a youngster. A light-medium body only adds to the overall impression of this being a light and soft whisky.
The finish is short - medium, slightly spicy and dry, although there is something (more like a sensation of mouth coating spices and herbs than an actual taste) that lingers about for a while.
In all honesty, I’m a bit on the fence about this. On the one hand, I quite like and enjoy this. The nose (which is the best part of the experience imo) is just lovely with its mixture of sweet and sour notes and its delicate character driven by floral elements. On the other hand, on the palate it’s still nice, but also it’s very young and youthful, so much so it’s flirting with it being almost under matured. Still, there’s no mistaken they are doing things right at Nc'Nean and they bring enough character and personality to give the distillery its own ‘identity’ and profile. It’s nuanced, layered, and subtle without it being generic or boring. It’s also rather interesting to see how those STR wine casks don’t take over the show and run away with things. In my experience, STR equals a strong, robust cask influence, even after only a few years of maturation, so seeing how this is all about subtlety and finesse means this brings me yet another new experience on this life long journey of exploring, learning and enjoying whisky (Thank you, Nc’Nean!). Having said that, to my personal palate and preferences, it could have done with a bit more maturation, as I enjoy this already, but think it needs at least a few more years in (probably not overly active) refill bourbon casks to really blossom. I really believe this has the potential to become quite the stunner in a few years’ time. Until then, a solid 82/100 in my book.
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