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 ...

Review #27: Isle of Jura 23yr 1989/2013 Heavily Peated, Signatory CS for K&L, ex-bourbon, cask #30707, 58.7% abv

should I open this? I think I should.

I might already have a few bottles open, but this came a few days ago. I think it needs to be opened. (Well, I don't have anything from Jura that's open ...)

Last time I had a Jura it looked like tartan kitsch and didn't taste like anything. But there have been a bunch of single casks from the 80's (albeit mostly '88s and not so heavily peated) around Europe, so I've been looking forward to this. K&L was good enough to ship it quickly even though my mixed-up order contained something from every location that they could have imagined.

The nose is brilliant. Intense and yet restrained, somehow. (That is, it doesn't smell like a wet tarry dog on fire in a bog, but the flavors are distinct and powerful.) Very coastal: iodine, wet briny rocks, kelp, tobacco juice and olive brine, a bit of oily smoked salmon. (There's a kind of pervasive smokiness over everything.) There's just a bit of dry grassiness and some underripe fruit: gooseberries (actually, how do you tell if those are ripe?), apple peelings, maybe plums. Some leather and a touch of creamy ex-bourbon sweetness. Plus lemon taffy.

Palate is oily and salty. So sardines and bitter herbs cooked in salty brown butter over a driftwood fire. Or maybe put the flaming driftwood and some rock salt in your mouth while you hold the sardine and squeeze some lemon over it. Something like that. Very long finish with lots more peat and salty licorice.

I've had this for a couple days now and feel confident in saying that it's good. I'll be devoting myself to further tests, but fuck, I should have bought another bottle. I think the score could go lower, but it's powerful yet mature, approachable at 57.8%, and intense while being a lot more than just a peat bomb.

score: 91

update: has a somewhat overlapping profile with this Bowmore, but that empty glass smells like farmy peat, whereas this one smells like smoky fishy candy corn. weird.