Camborne Tawny Cask

Nose: Big rancio, stewed fruit, grapes, aromatic wine-finished malt, citrus peel and toffee. It’s a deep and very appealing nose. Adding water softens the nose and provides integration. Palate: Hot, intense arrival with a lot of cinnamon and ginger spice but this is somewhat balanced by a wave of sweet fortified wine. Caramel and chocolate in the development but the underlying spirit and the cask seem not to be in accord. Adding water is a big improvement, particularly if you give it some time to recompose, but the lack of integration is still obvious. Finish: Medium. Sweet dark fruitcake and spice biscuits. There is a long, lingering sweet dark fruit note from the tawny cask. Camborne whisky is a project of Angove's St Agnes distillery in South Australia. They have been making prize winning brandy since 1925 and in 2015 they decided to try running barley wash through the old stills. This is a whisky that is strongly cask-led with the very fine tawny cask aromas and flavours instantly detected, However, this fortified wine character stands apart from the barley spirit giving the whisky a split personality. You taste the hot, spicy Angove spirit character (which seems to be way younger than its actual age), and alongside it but completely divorced you taste the cask. There is no integration. I would like to be more complimentary, and I certainly liked this whisky much more than their Brandy Cask expression I tried prior, but it seemed to me a work in progress and not something that is ready for public release – particularly at the price. Angove has the potential to make excellent whisky but with all respect they need to go back to the drawing board and reconsider everything about their infant project. I really hope they do because you can tell there is wonderful whisky here just begging to be realised. Tasted from a 30ml sample “Average” 78/100 (2.75 stars)