Springbank 1997 Vintage Batch 1 55.2% 1997

Professionele reviews

Serge Valentin (89)

One and only label so far for this new one... Phew!

Colour: pale gold.

Nose: we’re more in the vein of the second CV here, but with extra-oomph and more cask influence. More plain vanilla and vanilla fudge at first nosing but then it gets wilder, farmier, more vegetal and more mineral, not unlike the 12 we just had. Notes of fern, moss, fresh mushrooms, plantain bananas, roots, dead leaves... Then very big notes of wet chalk, a little porridge, ginger tonic, faint hints of turpentine and varnish, shoe polish... It’s very complex for such a young whisky, and certainly the one I like most of all recent bottlings by Springbank – so far!

Mouth: excellent attack, punchy but not overpowering, starting right on these very weird notes that I think are quite unpleasant in some recent Springbanks, Longrows or Hazelburns but that work quite well here. Something like Seven-Up or gin-tonic, or ginger wine. Also quite some butter, plain lemons, buttered toffee, malt, something like concentrated milk, melons... Let’s see what happens with water (and while the nose got smokier): more citrus (tangerines starting to rot – nothing wrong here), a little more salt and a very typical salty waxiness (?) plus quite some added spices, such as nutmeg and cinnamon and a sherry that got a little more obvious now but still rather discreet we think.

Finish: long, more compact (vanilla, lemons and salt) and also a little cleaner, which is exactly what’s expected in a very good whisky at my end.

I think this is excellent at barely 10 years of age and I almost feel like shouting ‘hurray for Springbank!’ An old love of mine may well be back...