Un-Chillfiltered Collection | 46% ABV

Score: 6/10

**Good stuff.**
***TL;DR***
*Quality Yet Unexceptional Sherried Drams*

When Life Gives You Lemons, You Drink Sherry?

I’ve missed writing for Dramface. It’s my cathartic escape, my moment of zen, a source of meditation-like centering, soothing a serrated soul.

And just like many of you, life just gets in the way, especially for those extra past-time activities like reading a book, exercising, having a drink with friends, or writing.

For me, life lately has been an amalgamation of various speed bumps, hairpin turns, and curveballs. And these perturbations have disrupted my outlet, my confessional cabinet, my meditation circle that is writing for Dramface. Whether they are technical or story driven articles, it satisfied a piece of me that was imbalanced.

Work has caused many near-sleepless nights in the past six months, with a 300% increase in growth revenue mandated by the suits in the C-suite over the past three years. Now I’m all for business growth but when the “normal” performance growth requirement is 30% with a “push” performance metric of 60% revenue growth year-over-year, things just get quite silly.

Anyone in their right mind would be ecstatic with a 30% growth but when the measuring stick related to any sort of salary increase or bonus is tied to a 60% growth metric, things can feel quite daunting, sometimes causing a downtrodden Broddy.

And wouldn’t you know it, I’ve met my “push” 60% growth metric only 2/3rds of the way through my companies fiscal year. While I should be shouting and whooping, and part of me is, the bulk of me is heaving through about fourteen months of work in seven months of time. Good for business purposes and some exec sitting comfortably somewhere else, bad for spare time and mental health.

Couple that with the busy season of vacations and outside sports with the kids, plus all of the gardening and landscaping maintenance that come with changing seasons, and I’ve been getting physically and mentally run-down. And to add insult to injury, or weight to an already overloaded sherpa, our main bathroom’s toilet developed a leak. And this just wasn’t a leak of the clean tank water. It was a full-blow leak of the black water, leading to all sorts of black mould under rippled plywood floors, damage to the underlying basement, and prompting a full-blown renovation of said bathroom and nearby front entranceway and mudroom which shares a common floor surface.

Suffice to say, I’ve been toiling way rebuilding the damage and improving the aesthetic at the same time, again consuming my spare time and decreasing the ability to grab a mental power-up of sipping whisky and drafting an article.

And more recently, we’ve experienced the driest spring in the last decade. This has resulted in record forest fires, blanketing the skies with billowing smoke. This comes with significant health implications for those with compromised lung health but for me, it severely hampered my olfactories and ability to sense the finer things in life, like the lovely aromas wafting out of my glencairn. The air quality got so bad that at one point, my city had the worst air quality of anywhere in the world. Quite a feat given I’m surrounded by the Rocky Mountains and normally some of the freshest air anywhere in the world. And a secondary effect of the long and dry spring is the surprise flair up of allergies. Now I’d thought I had outgrown those pesky allergies nearly 20 years ago but it would appear that the dry spring has brought these to the fore, further obscuring things in a murky mucosal mix. Good times and infuriating when one of my escapes is nosing and tasting whisky.

So looking at my recent purchases in the last six months, most have been sherried. A moment of introspection later while walking the pups late at night and driving off a pack of young coyotes that have moved in nearby, and I’ve arrived at the conclusion that the sweeter and comforting sherried malts have been soothing my sweet tooth that usually appears during adverse and stressful conditions. This pair of Edradours are part of this recent sweet tooth driven sherried malt purchasing spree.

Just like most of you, we are at the mercy of time and its inexorable and indomitable march forward. Blink your eyes, and a week has gone by. Blink again and May has appeared. Blink, now June. Blink. Blink. Time has been so precious that I write a few sentences at a time during some coffee breaks, gaining some mental shelter from the constant downpour of requests and project deadlines.

Suffice to say, I’ve missed everyone, and missed writing for Dramface. Hopefully I can get back on the horse here and achieve the near impossible perfect balance again. Remember to ground yourself and make sure your priorities and time are focussed on the right things. It is so very easy to be distracted from the most important things in your life, and make sure you set aside lots of time for fun activities.

Like tasting these sister casks.

Review 1/2

Edradour 10 yo, Signatory Un-chillfiltered Collection, Cask 284, Distilled June 2012, Bottled November 2022, 46% ABV

£55 Wide availability, US$100 paid.

Score: 6/10

**Good stuff.**
***TL;DR***
*Everything you expect from sherry casks, slightly hollow mid-palate*

Nose

An overture of sweet sherry notes: prunes, dates, and touch of raisins.

The smell of crystallising or boiling maple syrup. A rich dark chocolate cake. Muscovado sugar. Espresso powder. Touch of black licorice nibs and slightly bitter blueberries in a white batter muffin. Flat and warm coca-cola.

Palate

Baking spices. Slight bitterness from the licorice notes flows through from the nose, balancing the sweet notes. Date and raisin oat squares with cinnamon. Black Forest cake made with blackberries instead of cherries, with a light caramel drizzle. Praline candied nuts from the bulk bins. Dark toffee.

Slight hollowness to the mid-palate but the finish is long and warming with cinnamon tingles and some dark fruit/berries riding off into your gullet.

Score: 6/10

Review 2/2

Edradour 10 yo, Signatory Unchillfiltered Collection, Cask 485, Distilled December 2011, Bottled March 2022, 46% ABV

£55 generally available, US$100 paid.

Score: 5/10

**Average.**
***TL;DR***
*Slightly quieter. An earthiness that only appears in contrast*

Nose

Again, an overture of those sweet sherry notes: prunes, dates, and touch of raisins.

Light brown sugar. Streusel topped date squares on a dessert platter. Dried apricots soaked in a boozy cognac concoction with cinnamon sticks. Lovely stuff.

Palate

Immediately, it’s shy and gentle when coming off the big notes from Cask 284 so I’ve had to resort to less of a back-to-back approach to suss the nuances out and more of a singular approach for the individual notes.

Raisins, cinnamon, barrel char, molasses and oat cookies for horses (IYKYK), dark chocolate mousse dusted with cocoa. Praline candied nuts from the bulk bins again. Dash of peppery tingles, perhaps a bit ginger-like.

A slight wet earthiness that appears when tasted after Cask 284. When tasting Cask 485 alone, this note doesn’t appear with the same intensity. If I have an ex-bourbon dram before this 485, this note also pops up. Funny how these things work sometimes!

The finish is shorter and heavier on the mouth-numbing cinnamon-like bite and is rather generic in its sherried sweetness.

Score: 5/10

The Dregs

These were incredibly similar, yet had some noticeable differences when poured side-by-side. The nose of Cask 284 was darker and more brooding while Cask 485 was brighter, fruitier, and lighter. Both had no noticeable nose prickles while smelling big, round, and rich. I much prefer the nose on Cask 485 while preferring the palate of Cask 284. I find myself subconsciously reaching for Cask 284 while writing this review, despite 485’s glass sitting a mere few inches away.

These were both what I would consider good quality sherry casks. While they can’t stand up to the G&M sherry casks I’ve recently reviewed, they were not afflicted by the nefarious element sitting between phosphorus and chlorine (ie., sulfur) which was a big win for me. Much like the Edradour Ballechin 8yo I recently reviewed, these Signatory Edradour’s are what I would consider middle of the road. It seems that others mirror my thought’s on this relatively small Perthshire distillery following the Ballechin review:

“[Edradour] it's not 'bad' whisky as such, just quite pedestrian and middle of the road stuff.”
Earie Argyle
“Earie’s comment is perfect. Edradour Distillery is capable of great things but they are definitely a “try before you buy”…”
Pedro Menezes

For a casual drinker who prefer the standard “double cask” sherry finished official bottlings of various major brands, these Signatory Un-chillfiltered Edradour’s would be considered quite the improvement, bringing heaps of sherry influence to the party while not being overly powerful or offensive, providing a sweet easy drinking sherry bomb.

When I consider these Edradour’s in that light, they fit the bill perfectly for those looking for that experience, even . And perhaps to someone who is more familiar with the Signatory Edradour releases, and their inevitable single cask variations like regular Dramface commenter ChrisG, perhaps there are still some banger casks hiding in plain sight out there.

“I am more familiar with the batch variation of the Edradour 10-year old “Un-chillfiltered” version, and the current bottle I have open is a total banger”
ChrisG

So how did I arrive at the scores? Well, the palate of Cask 284 was better than 485 and one's subconscious behaviours are rarely wrong. For the prices I paid, which were also purchased on sale or offer, Cask 284 barely ekes out a 6/10 while the lesser (imo) Cask 485 drops down to a 5/10 considering the price vs experience ratio. Depending on your personal flavour preferences, the scores of each cask could have very easily been flipped.

I just can’t get over the price for these bottles, at least to me locally. GlenAllachie 8yo or cask strength releases are at a similar value proposition (and better, IMO), Glengoyne cask strength is similar or cheaper and at a higher %ABV (I love the butterscotch in it), etc.

The value proposition vs quality, in my opinion of course, is just not there. But as ChrisG points out, perhaps I just haven’t found the right bottles yet.

PS: does anyone know why the label text on these two bottles are different colours? Is there any significance between the colours or was Signatory/Edradour just being cheeky?

Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. BB

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