Last week I reviewed recent distillery exclusives from three Diageo distilleries located in the Highlands: an 11 yo Oban, a 12 yo Dalwhinnie, and a 14 yo Royal Lochnagar. Let’s start this week with another Diageo distillery in the highlands: Teaninich. This is not an official release or a distillery exclusive, however. This was bottled by the Thompson Brothers for K&L in California. Ignore the age statement and abv on the sample label in the pic alongside; that info accidentally got swapped by my sample source with that of the Thompson Brothers Caol Ila 8, 2013 for K&L that I’ve previously reviewed. This Teaninich is 12 years old and was bottled at 53.1%. Like the Caol Ila, it was bottled for K&L under the label, Redacted Bros. for some reason. K&L described it on their site as a single hogshead exclusive to them but only had 120 bottles—which is about half of what you’d expect to get from a hogshead at this age and strength. To confuse matters further there’s another Teaninich 12, 2009 at 53.1% that was released by the Thompson Bros. in Europe under their regular name. That one is from two refill bourbon hogsheads and 508 bottles are listed for it on Whiskybase. So, is this Redacted Bros release of 120 bottles a fraction of those 508 that came to the US? If not, where did the rest of this cask go? If you know, please write in below.

Teaninich 12, 2009 (53.1%; Thompson Bros. for K&L; bourbon hogshead(s); from a bottle split)

Nose: Malt, over-ripe pears, apple sauce, wet stones. Some lemon on the second sniff and a faintly rubbery note as well. Nothing new, really, with time. Let’s see what water does for it. 2-3 drops and the malt expands with some vanilla emerging to join it.

Palate: More or less as indicated by the nose; a little sweeter as I swallow. A little hotter than the abv might indicate; good texture. Gets sweeter faster with every sip—a mix of malt and pear but it’s a bit cloying, to be frank. With a few drops of water there’s more acid but I can’t say it’s very much more interesting.

Finish: Long. Sweeter here and a little whiff of smoke (wet coal) at the end. Some cereal and wheat toast with water and then a little bitter at the end.

Comments: After all that cask mystery, this is a pleasant daily drinker, if somewhat anonymously so.

Rating: 83 points.