Clynelish 1982 15 YO Flora & Fauna cask strength

Clynelish 1982 15 YO Flora & Fauna cask strength, 57,7 %

A good friend gave me a sample of this Clynelish Flora & Fauna cask strength. She had noticed my reviews of the standard Flora & Fauna whiskies...where I always find the nose to be good and interesting, but the taste...not to my taste... She told me I would probably think different about the cask strength editions.

So let's see what this 15 YO Clynelish can do for me. It was distilled in 1982 and bottled in 1997. Probably needless to point out but this one has spent quite a long time in the bottle.

Flora & Fauna is a distillery bottling from Diageo. I have written about quite a few of their releases in this series earlier. My latest review was of another cask strength release, a Rosebank.

Nose (22/25): Oily and waxy. Fresh like summer, with apples. Dusty. A smell of lemon zest - like when you use zest in cooking. Wet and freshly cut grass. Lemon grass. After a while in the glass the dustiness disappeared. Instead vanilla appeared.

Taste (23/25): A really rich flavour. Very warm, mild and gentle. Lots of vanilla, fudge, citrus and fruits.

Finish (23/25): Nice! What an aftertaste! Warm and lingering. Salt, vanilla, fudge and fruit. Oily.

Balance (23/25): This was truly something different from the regular Flora & Fauna bottlings. I guess the ABV gave a lot to the rich flavour and the long finish. Thanks, Ragnhild, for giving me this experience!

Score (91/100)

Image from drikkelig.no.

- Tone