It has been almost two years since I last reviewed any Edradour. Well, that’s not, strictly speaking, true: I have reviewed a number of Ballechins in the intervening period. (Ballechin, as you doubtless know, is the name of the peated variant of Edradour.) But it’s been a while since I’ve reviewed the distillery’s namesake brand; and so, let’s do a whole week of Edradour. First up is a somewhat obscure release. This is a first-fill marsala hogshead put out by a Taiwanese independent bottler named Or Sileis. Now, I enjoyed the old Ballechin #5 Marsala Cask back in the day; but it is also true that I generally like wine cask whiskies more when peat is involved. Peat is not involved here. Is that bad news? I’m not sure, by the way, whether this was a full-term maturation in the marsala hogshead or if it was finished in it for a period of months or years. The confusing thing is that the cask is said to have yielded 403 bottles, which is a lot for a hogshead bottled at cask strength. If you know more about this, please do write in below.

Edradour 2011-2020 (59.9%; first-fill marsala hogshead #73 for Or Sileis; from a bottle split)

Nose: Quite a lot of alcohol burn, and quite a lot of wine off the top (raisiny sweet). On the second sniff there’s a nutty/beany thing in there along with some malt; also some talcum powder. The sour notes emerge soon enough. A few drops of water push the talcum powder and sour notes back and bring out more of the nutty/beany thing.

Palate: Hmm this is weird: it comes in both sweet and sour; total winesky. Pretty hot at full strength; decent texture. On the second sip the sweet and sour notes are very reminiscent of sherry vinegar, with a little cough syrup in there as well. With time there’s a fair bit of oak as well (both damp and sharp). The cough syrup expands with time and the oak gets more bitter. Water balances things a bit but the sharp, sour and bitter notes are still here..

Finish: Long. The wine separates and there’s some charred oak. Develops as on the palate, getting quite bitter as it goes. Water reduces the bitterness but not by a whole lot.

Comments: This is more than a bit of a mess. However, it is that 403 bottles came out of a hogshead, nothing good happened in the process.

Rating: 76 points.