There was quite a lot of peat to close out June; so let’s start July on a milder note. First up, a trio of Speysiders—and first among them, a single bourbon hogshead. This was bottled by Signatory for Binny’s in Chicago and I’m really looking forward to it. Before shipping changes, and then my waning interest in buying whisky intervened, Binny’s was one of the premier US-based sources of interesting whisky. Their single cask program was always well-priced, interesting and usually the baseline quality was high. I’ve lost touch with it for some time now and so can only hope the standards are as they used to be. Well, I don’t know why I’m going on as though I haven’t reviewed any Binny’s releases for years and years—I just reviewed a few last month! But for whatever reason, this Dailuaine reminds me of what used to be a steady annual stream of good whisky put out without fuss or noise by Brett Pontoni and his team. Let’s hope it doesn’t let all my nostalgia down.

Dailuaine 12, 2007 (57.7%; Signatory for Binny’s; hogshead 303269; from a bottle split)

Nose: Sweet fruit (apples, pears), some prickly oak, honey and a fair bit of malt. Quite a bit of lemon on the second sniff. The lemon picks up some wax and gets sweeter and gets run through by a spike of apricot jam; meanwhile the apples and pears are being baked into pie in the background. With time a slight grassiness emerges and the lemon moves towards citronella. A few drops of water and the grassy note retreats and the citronella edges into Makrut lime.

Palate: Comes in as advertised by the nose and it’s just classic bourbon cask malt whisky. Surprisingly approachable at full strength; oily texture. Wax here too with time, and more of the honeyed malt. With more time still, the grassy note emerges here as well and the oak gets just a little bit too bitter. Water pushes the grass and the oak back here as well and emphasizes the malt and the citrus (both muskier and more zesty now). The texture is even oilier.

Finish: Long. The fruit (up top) and oak (backbone) continue. The oak has the last word (prickly rather than tannic). As on the palate with water.

Comments: I don’t know if Mr. Tattie Heid still reads these reviews (I suspect he does not), but whenever I taste a whisky like this I think of him. He always maintained that an appreciation of bourbon cask whisky of this type was a sign of the wisdom of age, and I think I am proof these days of that idea. Most sherry bombs bore me utterly now, especially young sherry bombs. Anyway, there are no fireworks here but this is as lovely a marriage of malt, fruit and oak as you could imagine at just 12 years of age. Wish I had a bottle.

Rating: 88 points.