The Blended Whisky Company – The Xl Blend Batch 1

The XL Blend

 

This sample is from The blended whisky Company ( Tbwc … Now that’s familiar!! ) and is quite simply named The XL Blend and when you do any searches you get a limited amount of information, it seems the company is about releasing high quality, old fashioned blended whisky that reminds us of past flavours and techniques, what it does say is this could be excellent or XL ent ( hmmm, that’s a bold statement) the XL also stands for 40 in Roman numerals so this should be a 40 year old !!

What they say..

“The Blended Whisky Company uses artful blending to prove that a blended whisky can be greater than the sum of its parts. Starting with whiskies from the lost distilleries and continuing with whiskies from the golden age of whisky “

As well as this blend the company also released a “Lost distilleries blend” that actually won the “ World’s best blend” in 2014 but we are talking about something that contained both Port Ellen and Caperdonich whiskies.. Another of the blends from TBWC or The Blended Whisky Company was “ The Golden Age Blend” which was a winner at the World Whisky awards, the ISWC and ISC awards.. Well it seems this Blend has a reputation to keep up.. Now I am really intrigued!!

The Xl Blend

Age.. 40 years old

Batch.. 1

Abv.. 46.3%

Outturn.. Unknown

Bottler.. The Blended Whisky Company

Nose.. Initially this is exactly what I hoped for.. Old grains and soft aromas from the malts included within. Madagascan Vanilla, butterscotch, butter drenched  corn on the cob along with rich caramel notes that mingle with soft freshly picked fruits, cinnamon and an earthy Manuka honey that just wraps itself around candied orange, a bowl full of wild berries, dark chocolate and a hint of tobacco leaf..

Palate.. Just imagine being in an old fashioned sweet shop with all the jars open, take a sweet from each and you get close to the flavours exploding in the mouth after the first sip from this glass.. Pear drops, liquorice, sugar coated almonds, butterscotch, fruit salads, black jacks, liquorice root, jelly babies, chilli infused chocolate then add a little cigar smoke before dipping your finger in the honey pot and you start to get the picture of what is going on in this liquid..

Finish.. Grainy, old oak with spices galore..

Thoughts.. O I like this a lot, this has me by the nuts as they say, I want it and I want it now…. The warming feel as it slips down is refreshing and those grainy notes are just sublime..

It really is like taking a step back in time, old library / Gentleman’s study, with its dark and mysterious aromas, leather bound books, dusty shelfs, its seductive,  in fact it’s damn well sexy !!

I know sometimes reviewing a sample can be misleading as once a bottle is opened they do change either slightly or dramatically and I know having a bottle of this is going to be a long journey of discovery, it will evolve, it will educate and it will be on my shelf !!