That Boutique-y Whisky Company is a series of single malt / single grain bottlings by the chaps from Master of Malt. They’re often taken from miniscule parcels of forgotten stock / lost casks / split cask leftovers. None of them carry age statements or other details, it’s just the distillery character that’s at the centre of this range. Obviously they are not single casks, most of the time it will be a blended (vatted) malt.

Plenty of thought has gone into the labeling. They’re hand-illustrated and most of them feature a well-known collector, blogger, writer… This Springbank batch #1 features Neil and Joel from Caskstrength.net.

Springbank batch #1
(54,6%, That Boutique-y Whisky Company 2012, 274 btl., 50 cl)

Nose: dry and oily, with flinty notes, lamp oil or graphite oil. Hints of dried algae and heather. Some paraffin. Very delicate hints of peat and smoke. Mouth: slightly sweeter, with some oranges and sweet lemon before it goes back to its Spartan side of ginger, grapefruit bitterness and briny notes. Again a bit of peat. Something of tequila too. In the end it goes back to a vague sweet fruitiness and honey. Finish: long, with liquorice roots, salt and heather.

All the typical Springbank elements are here, both the rounded side and – a tad louder – the austere coastalness. A nice vatting. Around € 75 for a 50 cl bottle, available from Master of Malt.

Score: 87/100