Colour: pale gold. Nose: ho-ho, this one is totally different, and truly unlike any other malt whisky. Imagine some new rubber boots, a lot of Dijon mustard, a lot of motor oil, a lot of bitter rocket salad, quite some apple peelings, asparagus peelings, green tea, plain grass, even wasabi, pepper… And not even one single fruity touch. In other words, this one is extremely grassy and austere, hence quite spectacular in its own genre. With water: same, with more peat and even more pepper. Unexpectedly Taliskerish, if I may dare to say so. Mouth (neat): aaah yes, this is something. Wonderful bitterness, grassy, not aggressive but quite, resinous, liquoricy, peaty and phenolic/smoky, lemony… This is big whisky, maybe a tad raw but so satisfying and ‘anti-commercial!’ (wot?) With water: and the fruits do kick in now. Oranges, bananas, ripe apples, even blueberries… How excellent! Finish: giddy-up! Comments: just great. Sometimes we feel that some rants about closed distilleries are very vain, as many did not really make stellar malts, but Banff IS a sad loss. We’ll probably upgrade it from third to second grand cru classé next time we’ll revise our ‘funny’ ranking.
