|
 Compass Box work with a
small mill in France that produces some of the highest quality
cooperage oak in the world. It was their work with this mill that
led them to experimenting with secondary maturation of malt whiskies
in casks fitted with new French oak heads.
This is something no one
else in Scotland does. The result is malt whisky with more character
and complexity. They use this technique on about 50% of the malt
whisky in Oak Cross and it results in a superior finished product.
Nose:
the spiced French oak has been cleverly tamed thanks to an
understated lustre to the barley.
Taste: such
delicate fruit, not entirely unlike Payne's Raisin Poppets, then an
oak surge towards the middle; throughout subtle spices pop and
tickle around the palate. The oak/spice/barley/fruit ratio is just
about perfect.
Finish: some
wonderful semi-dry marzipan at the death is cloaked in cocoa.
Balance: a
vatting of exceptionally high class malts which have embraced the
oak without ever yielding to it. Superb! Ignore entirely the
instructions on the back to add ice, water or whatever: this is
genius whisky that must be drunk exactly as nature intended.
Jim Murray's 2008 Whisky Bible: 94 Points.
|
Home 
