This 2024 bottling from Diageo’s Special Releases is only the second release of Roseisle ever. There are some other mentions on Whiskybase, but those are of blends to also contain whisky from other distilleries.
The first release was reviewed by Tom. According to my own Whiskybase collection, my sample or bottle (I don’t even remember whether I did the bottle share or I just participated in it) is gone. This is a little bit of a prelude to the review that is about to follow.
I did do a bottle-share of this one, and now have the last sample of it in my own glass. Yesterday I sat down to get to know the whisky a little bit and now I’m writing the tasting notes directly on this here page, instead of making notes first and publishing later. A little bit of live blogging, so to say.
Sniff:
Crisp and very clean on the nose. Quite some vanilla with sweet barley and a little bit of oak. The woodiness is rather timid for a modern 12 year old whisky, but the grain isn’t. It is almost sponge cake like, with a little bit of lemon drizzle. Not as much as to make it a lemon drizzle cake, but still. Sweet hints of fruit like baked apple and banana.
Sip:
The palate is surprisingly dry, but doesn’t veer far from the nose in regard to flavors. There is some white pepper that wasn’t there before, but the fruitiness is the same. It does mellow a little bit and starts showing a little bit of oak. Mostly, still, it’s a vanilla forward dram. It is rather syrupy.
Swallow:
The finish stays in the somewhat dry domain. Slightly fruity, with a hint of white pepper and oak. Still rather syrupy in texture. Of medium length, with little development.
To me this is one of those modern whiskies that are technically very well made, but in the end rather boring. It holds the middle ground of all Speyside variants, and seems like a great backbone malt for blending. As a single malt, I don’t think it will change the landscape.
Maybe some more aging would work wonders, but I’m glad that we got to try a (refill and first fill) bourbon cask matured one first. This gives us the chance to get to know the spirit more than the cask management.
85/100