Edradour week began very unpromisingly on Monday with a single marsala cask bottled by a Taiwanese outfit named Or Sileis. It moved all the way up to middling on Wednesday with the 2019 release of the official Caledonia Selection. Which way will things go with today’s closer? Oh shit, did I mention this was a Taiwanese bottling as well? Can you feel the dramatic tension? This is the oldest of the trio at 15 or 16 years of age, and is from a single sherry cask. In case you’re wondering about the name, it refers to Tiger Huang, who is apparently “a famous whisky industry practitioner in Taiwan“. Is Tiger his real name or a nickname? Why can’t a nickname be a real name? What is this, an interrogation? Why haven’t you mentioned that there’s also a Taiwanese pop singer named Tiger Huang? Did she have something to do with this? And how about the “strategy and transformation leader” ex of McKinsey? How the hell are there so many people named Tiger Huang? What exactly is going on here?

Edradour 2000-2016 (57.9%; sherry cask 3146 for Tiger’s Finest Selection; from a bottle split)

Nose: A richly sherried arrival with dried orange peel, beef stock, a bit of apricot, and a bit of hoisin sauce. With time there’s a fair bit of plum and some cherry in there too, and just a bit of leather. With water it’s all of the above, just a bit more integrated than it already was.

Palate: Sweeter arrival here and some oaky bite but otherwise as indicated by the nose. Gets quite syrupy as it heads to the finish. Hot but approachable at full strength; rich texture. More of the orange peel on the second sip; some soy sauce too now. Gets a little more sour as it sits and the spicy oak jumps out quicker. Okay, let’s add some water. A few drops and the spicy oak recedes and the sour notes meld with the sweeter fruit.

Finish: Long. The dried orange peel and oak (getting spicier as it goes) dominate here. As on the palate with water at first but the oak comes back at the end (not as spicy as before).

Comments: This is an example of the cask dominating the base spirit. This tastes like a fruity sherry bomb that could have come from any number of distilleries (though Glendronach comes most readily to mind). None of Edradour’s idiosyncratic character is in evidence here. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, mind…and after Monday’s 9 yo, I was very happy with this one.

Rating: 88 points.