.tomatin - cù bòcan - 1989

It has been a while since I have made a note of a Tomatin whisky, and it is about time I am going to change that. The Cù Bòcan range is the peated range of the distillery, which normally distils non-peated barley, the 1989 edition is the happy mistake that got the range started in the first place.

53.2% abv, €220
single malt, non-chill filtered, natural colour

Nose: sweet, liquorice, a hint of smoke, fruit, pear, red apple sauce, citrus, lemon rind, red fruit, berries, blackcurrant

Palate: sweet, liquorice, smoke, floral, fruit, pears, red apples, citrus, grapefruit, pomelo, blackcurrant, berries

Finish: long, sweet, honey, floral, honeysuckle. liquorice, a hint of bitter lemon rind, marmalade, gentle smoke
Mark: ++++/+ 

Conclusion: If building a time machine were an option, I would suggest to go back to 1989-ish, and make some more "mistakes"... This is delightful!

More info: On the 7th of June, 1989, a batch of peated malted barley was distilled on the Tomatin distillery and because they normally did not distill peated barley, they must have put is away to sleep and forgot about it for years and years. In 2014, three of these ex-Bourbon casks (#37470, 37471 and 37472) were married together and bottled into 1080 bottles worldwide. Incidentally, 1080 is a number that is very appealing to me as a video-nut, but that is a whole different story...