Clynelish Select Reserve (Special Release 2015) Cask Strength Single Malt Scotch Whisky (700ml) - 2nd Edition

$500 off. Buy one. Buy two. Collect one, drink another. There's no way to lose. An incredible opportunity to purchase one of the finest Clynelish we’ve tasted to date. Price holds only while direct import stocks last.

A combination of four different vintages assembled by Johnny Walker Master Blender, Jim Beveridge. The whiskies in this are "a minimum of 15 years old, and often far more"drawn from a combination of x-bourbon first-fill American oak barrels, rejuvenated and refill American oak hogsheads and ex-Sherry and refill European oak butts. Bottled at natural strength, 3,000 bottles are available worldwide.

Tasting note: Brilliant pale gold. Shy at first but builds significantly after brief exposure. Oozes out of the glass with a sublime combination of stewed pear / apple, fig paste and creamy malt. Five minutes in the glass shifts the accent to beeswax, white pepper and vanilla. Creamy, mouthwatering, malt; beeswax, stewed pear and delicate clove delivered with a light sprinkling of pepper. Really impresses with the length. The faintest puff of smoke here? Ends perfectly poised, fresh and long with suggestions of apple tart in the fade. Seriously good. 56.1% Alc./Vol.

Other reviews... Despite it being NAS, I had enjoyed last year’s version quite a lot (WF 88). Now the lovely little book about these SRs states that it’s ‘at least fifteen years’, which virtually makes it a 15 yo, ‘and often far more’. They have used several types of cask – too long to mention – but the colour does not suggest first fill sherry. Colour: pale gold. Nose: there is a little vanillin at first nosing, but no coconut. And then, indeed, a combination of various periods of Clynelish, blended together with care. It’s almost as if you had vatted the BBR and the Wemyss that we just tried. Mangos and passion fruits, all things citrus, wax and paraffin, a drop of honey, some hay and some damp earth, some tobacco, a little menthol yet again… In truth, this nose is beyond reproach. With water: some mud and some seaweed coming out. Mouth (neat): watch it! Starts smooth, so you may want to down a good sip, but it’s very strong! Lemon skin, waxes again, a lot of lemongrass, green tea, a great bitterness (around grapefruits), and more and more salt. A grassy smokiness. With water: becomes sauvignony, like many 1995-1998s are. Or rather, manzanilla-like. Walnuts, a drop of seawater, a touch of mustard. I juts couldn’t be against that. Finish: long, grassier, limy and salty. A great margarita made in Sutherland. Comments: it seems that it’s sharper and better chiselled than last year’s version. Which leads to this fact: I like it even better. Too bad it’s too expensive.
90 points- Serge Valentin, whiskyfun.com

[2014 release tasted]....Does any one do honey as well as Clynelish? The fact that they can even pull it off with European oak involvement underlines the brilliance of this distillery. 91 points - Jim Murrays Whisky Bible 2019