Review #31: Imperial 17yrs 1995/2013, 52.7%, Signatory, C# 50135, selected for K&L, 168 bottles.

Imperial was of course the official distillery of the Death Star


I seem to have a lot of good stuff to drink right now, but duty calls ... here's another cask strength Signatory bottling from K&L, this time an Imperial. As with the Jura, there seem to be a lot of casks of roughly the same vintage floating around Europe -- such as this one, this one, and (with almost the same cask #) this one. They seem generally well regarded -- Imperial appears to be one of those things that is thought of more fondly once it's gone. In any case, I'm looking forward to this one.

Nose is buckets of juicy red apples, grassiness, and then a wave of sweet: cotton candy turning into white chocolate and jonquils. There's just a little bit of malt sugar seed oil (grapeseed?) just to keep things interesting.

The palate is powerfully oily, sweet, and then spicy. A sharp cinnamon really takes over and balances out the soft sweetness nicely. Finish is very long on spicy vanilla, with some apples creeping back in.

Compared to this one, the flavor profile is very similar but a bit simpler. On the other hand, this one is an easy pleasure -- even at 52.7%, I've just gone through a bunch of it. In fact, I'm drinking it right now and typing with my left hand. It's hard to imagine not liking this.

score: 86


an aside: out of all these Imperial casks, I hope against hope that someone saved some for another decade or so of aging. this one isn't dried out in the slightest, and is just starting to develop some floral goodness on top of the sweet apple ...