Tamnavulin is a young distillery built in the 1960’s as part of Invergordon Distillers. Currently White & Mackay are managing it. The distillery produces an impressive amount of malt whisky but most of it is used for blends. Single malt bottlings are quite rare.

This cask strength bottling is the third or fourth Tamnavulin release in the Master of Malt series.

Tamnavulin 16 yo (55%, Master of Malt 2008)

Nose: malty start with grapey accents. Some pears. Becomes significantly more flowery and sweeter after breathing. Vanilla. There’s also a vegetal side to it, like raw cabbage. That may seem strange, but it’s very enjoyable. Mouth: punchy attack. Starts very sweet but grows maltier. Apples and pears. Nice oak. Hints of pineapple sweets and violets. Lemon squash. Some notes of lavender. Getting slightly spirity and even perfumy in the end, but nothing too bad. More or less the same with water. Finish: long, grainy and very sugary. Loads of honey with hints of oranges.

Interesting Tamnavulin. It shows a few uncommon flavours, although it’s not overly complex. Maybe not my style of dram, but still quite nice, certainly if you have a sweet tooth. Around € 70.

Score: 81/100