🥃 Whisky Auctioneer

Mahogany colors and with beautiful stained glass windows, the Hazelburn 2004 already thrilled in the glass. With 47.4% Vol. Filled the Dram can expect a lot and you will not be disappointed!

Very chocolaty but also more dirtiness in the finish

caramel, chocolate, tobacco, oak, cookie dough, quite dirty, ginger, sweet spices, pepper, very wood driven, not bad

A cleaner, lighter and sweeter profile than the previous 2003-2017 version. It doesn't have any of the sulphur traces that are in that one.

[May, 2018]  I am in the mood to test some new releases and so I bought a bottle of this new Springbank of the Hazelburn style.  Before that I checked there is no sulphur in there and the good news is - yes, there was not a single sulphurous cask in the whole batch.  Great cask management at Springbank, congrats to this! The colour is russetmuscat and the texture shows small tears that consolidate to bigger ones with slow legs.  The nose is quite bold on a modern sherry profile with all the fine sherry and malty induced aromas a connoisseur dreams of.  All in a fine balance with not a single flaw that I can find, simply superb!  The dram arrives rich and warming on the palate with a fine coating effect and no distracting moments whatsoever.  A truly excellent mouthfeel, I like that!  The taste is even richer with a great balance of the sherry, malt and wooden flavours again.  It is not the most complex one, but it is impressive and very quaffable.  The finish is of medium length and adds more spicy and chocolatey flavours to the taste with agan no distracting moments except a minor drying feeling at the very end.  Some water releases additional aromas and flavours and turns the dram even more sipable.  I like it both neat and reduced to about 40% abv (the reduced dram is even more dangerously quaffable). Wow, this is one of the best modern sherried drams I had so far (even better than the Tamdhu Dalbeallie) and it is offered at a fair price point.  The rich Hazelburn malt characteristics combine greatly with the flawless sherry casks to a delicious treat for all sherried whisky lovers.  This is not a NAS edition and it proves that age does matter!

https://whiskylovingpianist.wordpress.com/2019/01/21/springbank-last-years-new-forthcoming/ I tried this before, but it was a very limited first contact: Blog[80]. N: Oaky sugars, Kiwi, Weetabix, teak furniture and all the things that were being shouted out. A fun one and an easy reader. T: There’s more fun to be had with oaky sweet sugars and a murkier side that speaks of vegetal oily soup. F: A slightly disappointing [and frequently inevitable], waxy rubbery oloroso-led finish, but at least it held off until the end. C; There’s often a score shelf with these engineered ones, and this one hit it. Scores a B[-] Auction June '19 https://www.whiskyauctioneer.com/lot/185339/hazelburn-2004-oloroso-cask-13-year-old?s=5cf56c40d2e58