Amber Lane SMWC – February 2023

Huge Award Winning Whisky News! Amber Lane Distillery just absolutely cleaned up at the World Whiskies Awards last week. Not only did they win 2 GOLD medals and a SILVER for 3 of their matured expressions, they also took out a SILVER medal for their ‘Pure Amber’, which is their new-make spirit ‘cut’ to around 68%.

This makes our February release very special indeed – An EXCLUSIVE collaboration of exceptional whisky from Amber Lane for our whisky loving members.

This incredible whisky was blended from 4 large casks (Amber Lane only use large format casks) – one a 30+ year old 250L Oloroso cask from Fernando de Castilla (a legendary Spanish bodega), a Spanish Pedro Ximenez, an Aussie Apera and a Heaven Hill Bourbon cask. They have all been marrying for around a month in the Spanish Oloroso cask before bought down to 50% for bottling.

Not only do Phil and Rod at Amber Lane make brilliant choices in wood to mature their whisky in, but that their base product – the spirit itself – is world class. I think the ‘focus on the spirit, and the whisky will come’ mantra is well in effect here.

The Amber Lane ‘style’ of whisky is very much ‘malt-forward’. They are looking to highlight flavours from the barley itself in their whisky. To this end, they are very selective of the wood they use to mature their lovingly crafted spirit. They exclusively use old, large capacity casks for their maturation. No 50L barrels in this bondstore!

They are not looking for massive past-life influences from the wood. Rather, they are looking for wood that will temper and refine their spirit – without compromising the ‘malt forward’ flavour profile they aim for. Augment the malty goodness of their new-make, without overpowering it. Maturation rather than saturation, is the name of the game here.
Don’t get me wrong – there’s plenty of fruity notes and other influences from the casks, but these really sit around the malty core, rather than being the featured notes.

Nose: Such an enticing and complex nose – it’s a distinct malty core wrapped with a tempting fruity sweetness, but there’s also green olives and faint leather notes there too.

Palate: Luscious, mouth coating oilyness – very syrupy indeed. A brief flash of white pepper burst precedes juicy fruit chewing gum notes, vanilla, honey and chocolate with sweet vanilla-malty biscuits (Malt-O-Milk?) to round it out.

Finish: long, chewy and thoroughly delicious with big ginger notes, chocolate, espresso coffee and freshly cut vanilla pods and (is that?) some all-spice… all in a big Milk Arrowroot embrace.

The Amber Lane SMWC is big, fruity vanilla goodness, with a heart of pure malt. This is a big, complex and rewarding whisky that really wants you to sift through it’s many flavours and tones and notes. I’m just so enamored with the way the malt pushes through the lovely fruit notes.