Don’t believe anybody who tells you that it’s just the same booze in a different bottle.
It isn’t.
The earlier edition of the Springbank 15, so clumsily described as the ‘old packaging’, is anything but that.
It is Springbank’s tradition at its best. A stable hold on the whiff, taking its time for the full array of rich malty nose to emerge. And while it is at it, those dreamy hints of fruits and toasty flavours also come through on the back on the nose.
On the tip, the flavour is much more hurried. The syrupy quality is immediate, as are the slightly spicy and nutty accents. What was initially suspected as a kind of saltiness actually turns out to be an additional dimension to the nutty tones of the taste.
And as if to complete its rhythmic variation (does your glass play music?), the finish held off for a quite a while. This time the syrup subsided to reveal a far more subtle sweetness that is well grounded.
By comparison, the newer edition of the Springbank 15 is a lot less challenging, giving us what we have come to expect of Campbelltown. Mind you, that is not a weakness but an attraction.
The toffee and caramel notes are present in the initial nose, but these merged together fairly quickly to take on a more vanilla-like tone. There is also some fruitiness, but more of a trace than a defining presence.
And the subtlety of that nose makes the palate more dramatic than we expect. There is some heaviness that grounds the flavour, as though a bar of dark chocolate came by to drop off some fruit and nuts but itself decided not to stay. Is this what reluctance tastes like? We can do with more of it.
The finish is reasonable (dry, slightly oaky), not spectacular, but we can only take so much drama with one drink anyway.
Tags: Springbank
