The barley variety Optic was grown in the South fields and harvested in the last week of August 2006. It was then stored on the farm to be malted in Alloa during the summer of 2007.
This seven first fill ex bourbon barrels that make up this bottling, casks 023/2007, 024/2007, 025/2007, 027/2007, 032/2007, 035/2007 and 038/2007 were distilled and filled in November 2007.
TASTING NOTES
Aromas of freshly baked sponge, cardamom and peach skin lead on to a floral note reminiscent of gorse flower. The palate is vibrant with fresh vanilla, fruit, toasted almond and a juicy tangerine edge on the back-palate, building to a spicy finish with just a touch of mashed banana.
Daftmill are well established in the whisky community as something rather special. They have only been going since 2005 after a two year wait from HMRC for a distillery licence, but they have hit the ground running with a summer and winter release yearly since their inaugural release in 2018, aging their whisky for 12 years.
I've covered a bit of background into Daftmill in the YouTube review, however, checkout their website Daftmill.com to find out more. I mentioned they are something rather special, this is the first time I have tried a Daftmill release, many whisky fans or rather, whisky drinkers, may not have had the oportunity to try Daftmill; one because they are farm and their production capacity is limited to 20,000 litres a year, the release I am reviewing was limited to 1,785 bottles to the UK market and secondly, Daftmill are popular with 'Flippers', if your not familiar with that term, its given to people who buy whisky at retail price to immeadiately (or after a short period of time) resell for a profit, im not going to get into my thoughts on 'Flippers', suffice to say maybe the wrong 'F' word was used to discribe them.
Onto the bottle. Thank you to Stuart from the YouTube channel 'Whisky Whims' for sending me this dram as part of a dram swap we did. Please checkout the channel and consider subscribing. He produces some great content while adding in a great sense of humour into the mix.
Bottled at 46% ABV, its non chill filtered and natural colour. It originally retailed for arround £99.95, which for a 12 year old is quite high, however, as a single site operation, isn't too bad in the sheme of things. We give it a value score of 91.67/100.
On the nose; is sweet vanilla, spice and citrus fruity with some 'hay funk', it is a wonderful nose, you can smell the bourbon influence.
On the palate; Oh My this is a pleasure to sample. It's gorgeous.
It is sweet vanilla icing sugar, spicy with cinnnamon and nutmeg, some tropical fruit of maybe melon, mango and peach, then there is citrus with orange and lemons.
The alcohol does present quite strongly and the finish is oak spice.
With water the palate opens with more vanilla and oak.
This whisky is reminiscent of the Bimber ex-bourbon which is due for release in June 2020, the Daftmill is a very similar character, with a little less of the chocolate on the finish, possibly due to the different time in the cask.
It is better without water, however with a small sample and a hurried video maybe time would be the decider, for an overall score we gave it 89/100, but having sat with the remainder, we have reflected and decided that 90/100 is more appropriate.
Go hunt those unicorns but don't pay over the odds to those 'Flippers'.