That Boutique-y Whisky Company features a series of cartoons on their labels. Some are geared towards specifics about the bottling, like Invergordon’s juxtaposition of a Coffey still and a coffee machine, while others are pure madness, like Aultmore’s velociraptor escaping a shipping container to attack a great white shark near an exploding oil rig. I liked the style so much that I designed my own Boutique-y label. Since they already made a label for the Springbank releases I chose a distillery they had not yet bottled.
It’s a self-portrait with my two most disparate childhood-heroes, Fred Rogers and Kurt Cobain. Kurt and I are in Hell for obvious reasons and indulge in the fire and brimstone of a delicious Laphroaig. Fred, being a vice-less, ordained Presbyterian, sips on a juice box and is most likely just visiting us because he’s a good neighbor. Both of these characters were around for important, formative years of my life and both were surprisingly talented musicians. I think both would also make for interesting company if they were still alive today. I’ll probably never do anything even one-tenth as awesome as either of them, but I still like to think my world-view sits somewhere between the two.
I would love nothing more than to see this on an actual bottle…
What does all of this have to do with the sample of Springbank Batch 2 that the kind folks at Master of Malt sent me? Nothing. I just wanted to play around with Photoshop and kill four hours of my day, so let’s get to the notes already.
Nose: Pine needles, juniper berries and blue cheese towering over a base of sweet malt. Sleek and sexy with wafts of brined thai chile peppers and pasta water. Kerosene and cloves. Caramel popcorn and a little chocolate.
Palate: Gin lights the fire that smolders into waxy smoke. Subdued peat with a little pine sap. Bright juniper in the finish, lingers for a good run. A spectacular palate. Hot and velvety sweet underneath with lime and a tiny bit of chocolate that coats the tongue.
Instead of my final thoughts on this senselessly delicious Springbank, I’ll pose you this question. If you could have lunch with any two of your childhood heroes who would it be, why and what would you serve?
