Review #65 - SMWS 39.217 'Crunchy and Homely' - Linkwood 8 Year
SMWS 'Spicy and Sweet' Profile Mini-Series: Part 1 of 3
This is the first time we've looked at any Scotch Malt Whisky Society (SMWS) bottles in our reviews, despite a focus on Scotch in our whisky journey, and also the fact that we own about a dozen of the brand's bottles now. In this series, we'll be looking at SMWS bottles in a specific flavor profile, 'Spicy and Sweet,' which is denoted on the current generation of bottles by the vivid purple bands/stripes. According to the brand, flavors in this profile might be along the lines of "gingerbread, hot cross buns, mulled wine and even balsamic strawberries," as well as "the culinary experience of bringing spice into sweet dishes, the addition of cinnamon to pastries or sweet chilli flavours."
The SMWS generally bottles single cask single malt Scotch whiskies, though they have been diversifying into a few other spirits in recent years (bourbon, rye, Armagnac, and rum, among others), as well as blending their own small batch whiskies. Quality can vary from bottle to bottle (as with all independent bottlers focusing on single casks), but from our experience, the quality floor is generally pretty high.
The elephant in the room with SMWS is the fact that they're pay to play - to have access to their bottle selection in the first place, you must pay a yearly membership fee; then, once you get to purchasing the individual bottles themselves, they're far from cheap, especially once you factor in the shipping costs. One factor in the prices of the whiskies, though, may be the great craft presentation - all bottles (of the single malts, at least) are bottled at cask strength, with no chill filtration and no added coloring.
Still, despite the cost, there was one big reason we got involved with this brand - availability. In our part of the Midwestern US, general availability of independently bottled Scotch whisky has been poor for a while. It's slowly improving, but we still don't have access to most of the reputable IBs. SMWS, specifically the US affiliate, on the other hand, was able to ship to our state, which opened up our journey to dozens of distilleries that we otherwise would have no access to. At a point in our journey where we were trying to expand our horizons and experience as much variety in whisky as possible, this was important to us; that, paired with the good reviews we generally saw of this brand's bottles, was enough for us to overcome the price barrier. Anyways, enough about the brand - what about this specific bottle?
The bottle in this review is from the Linkwood distillery, one in the Speyside region that is owned by Diageo, which does not generally produce a core range of distillery bottlings. The only expression of note is the 12 year Flora & Fauna bottling; much of the rest of production goes into Johnnie Walker blended whiskies. Because of this rarity, we have to turn to IBs to get a taste of the spirit.
This bottle was aged in a first-fill bourbon barrel for 8 years before being bottled at a natural cask strength of 60.4% ABV. General characteristics of the Linkwood spirit are reported to be light, with grass or heather notes, and some lighter fruits like apple and stone fruit. We'll be on the lookout for those, along with some strong bourbon cask sugar and oak notes.
SMWS 39.217 'Crunchy and Homely' - Linkwood 8 Year
Scotland/Speyside - Single Malt
Price Paid: USD 100 (2022)
Current Locally Available Price: Sold out, no longer available
Age Statement: 8 Years
Strength: 60.4% ABV
Cask Makeup: First fill ex-bourbon barrel
Details: 1 of 201 bottles, distilled September 2012
Tasting Methodology: Reviewed 3 times over 2 months; bottles at 90%, 80%, and 70% (blind tasting) fill levels at times of review. Tasted in a Glencairn glass each time, rested 10-15 minutes
Nose: Starts of strong and spritely, with some brighter flavors of sherbet and cherry soda, along with wood sugars. We quickly move toward a lot of vanilla - this is in the form of dry vanilla bean, as well as liquid vanilla extract. There is some dry oak here, and a bit of a malty grain, and then we move toward other spices and baking elements: white pepper, a hint of black pepper, brown sugar, and raw almond nuttiness. Speaking of nuts, we get a bit of peanut, too, which transitions toward toasted coconut, creamy icing sugars, creme brulee, and sweet Hawaiian rolls. With more time to open up, the nose turns fruity: lemon, pineapple, and a tart fruit jam. There's sweetness from butterscotch, and a hint of herbal eucalyptus. Quite a bit going on, really.
Palate: Punchy, very spirit forward and youthful and grainy, with a medium-thick mouthfeel. Lots of oats and cereal notes, along with baking spices of cinnamon, vanilla sugar, and a darker demerara sugar, which turns toward butterscotch and honey. Plenty of oak here, too: spice, almost toward a rye spice, and some mild charcoal later on, even a bit of old furniture wood. Fruit has mostly melted away except for a bit of banana, but then some buttery chardonnay and oil come in - it's a bit crisp and fiery overall, but not too dry. Ends with some nut butter.
Finish: The finish is medium length, some heat from the ABV, though it fades quickly, leaving some oily oak. Very mild baked bread and cinnamon spice. There is a little bit of fruit coming back, sweet citrus between lemon and orange, which transitions toward some blood orange at the end.
Final Note: While the nose excited us and took a while to digest, the palate and finish become more one-dimensional, and the youth began to show - this might have needed a little more time in the cask to finish developing. It has plenty of strength with the high ABV presentation, but some more mature flavors in the later parts of the tasting would bring the score up. Still, not bad overall, just a bit unpolished. Value is mediocre because of the hefty price of the SMWS bottles, and we aren't even factoring the membership fee into this calculation.
Our Average Rating: 7.0 / 10
In the current whisky landscape of increasing prices and variable quality, we've added a value rating to our reviews that relates to the score and the available pricing of each whisky. This roughly equates to a 0-10 scale; no reviews so far have exceeded a score of 10, although it is technically possible for the formula to produce a value rating higher than 10 with a high enough score and low enough price.
Value Rating: 6.03
