Wolfburn Small Batch Release No. 375

Wolfburn tasting evening at The Oak Barrel, Sydney, May 30th 2019: Whisky #4 Nose: Fruity and floral, but darker in character and more mellow than the rest of the Wolfburn core range. The pear is now peach, the apricot nectar is dried apricot, the pineapple has been simmered in honey. The presence of sherry is more noticeable with some definite raisin notes and nutty hints. There's an inscrutable mellow maturity that is surprising given the age of the spirit, and a background aroma of vanilla. Palate: A sweet combination of sultanas, honey and cream that billows onto the palate upon arrival. Rich, rounded, silky and supple with a good texture - oily and full with caramel, maple syrup and toffee tones balanced by ginger and allspice. Almonds and cashews, a mild oak note with some cappuccino and dark chocolate in the background. Finish: Medium/long. Excellent. The palate seamlessly dissipates into a lingering honeyed dark fruit and cereal aftertaste, with a slightly savory overtone. This is a very good whisky for its age. Hand on heart - if you poured me a dram of this and asked me to guess the age I'd say it was 8-10 years old, but astonishingly it is just four and a half years old. 75% of the content was matured in half-sized (100 litre) first-fill bourbon casks, and 25% was matured in second-fill oloroso hogsheads. What Wolfburn has accomplished here is remarkable. They have distilled a balanced, fruity, elegant new-make that requires only modest maturation (although in very good casks, I'm sure) to produce whisky with character and charm in less than 5 years. It outclasses many drams of twice that age or more - compare this to recent 12 year old Fine Oak Macallan and the difference is frankly embarrassing (for the Macallan). They have pulled off this small batch trick three times in a row now. The No.128 and No.270 expressions were both great drams, but with this No.375 they have excelled themselves. If you have not tasted something by this young distillery (for heavens sake - their first spirit run was only 6 years ago!) then you are missing a great experience. Wolfburn is the far north coast Kilchoman, and they are on track to become the far north coast Springbank. This expression was overwhelmingly voted the best of the tasting session, and it sold out in minutes on the night. If you can find a bottle - buy it. “Very Good" : 87/100 (4.25 stars)

In honor of World Whisky Day instead of going all out with something I know is amazing, I decided to give two distilleries a second attempt that didn’t convince me in the first place. Namingly Wolfburn first and Kilchoman on the second dram. From both I had samples before but they just didn’t click with me. So here we go. This Wolfburn is a small batch and was just released some short while ago along their other still very young bottlings. The nose starts off very shy but nosing it for a while and more deeply presents some really nice aromas. There is a mild but flavorful fruitiness. I get jelly bananas (if you are familiar with this typical German candy), red currant, crispy vanilla cookies and honeyed apples. I already like it a lot more than I remember the Wolfburn flagship Northland that I had some months ago. The palate arrives quite intense and is actually really nice. I mean yes it has a mouth-coating alcoholic strengt in form of a ginger burn to it from the young age but that doesn’t feel out-of-place at all. But the actual tastes are sweet peaches, ginger as well, nutmeg, crackers, wine gummy and a whole bunch of vanilla and fresh ground whole-grains. The finish is surprising really. Quite long and intense with some very interesting flavor transitions which I can’t really grasp but that remind me of an underage Springbank. The nose gets better while drinking and the whole dram forms to a really enjoyable experience. I am very positively surprised which is what I was hoping for. I will keep my eyes on this interesting distillery for some future releases that were given a couple more years to mature. Recommended and I think I will get a bottle of this one to remind me that Wolfburn has probably a lot of potential in the next years. A very nice dram for today’s occasion.

I tasted most products of Wolfburn at a tasting event. Out of Aurora, 375, Northland, Morven, Langskip, The Nectar, and 318, I prefered the 375 and 318. However, at this pricepoint there are better options out there for me. The 375 was comparable to aurora, with dark chocolate, cherry, and that peppery burn, but less of an underlying medicinal taste. More orange or exotic fruit in the nose. Lighter than aurora. A little less impact as well in the mouth, but overall the balance of flavours was more preferable for me.

Loght and fruity. Young with sour notes.

Very light