Nose: Vanilla, banana, oak, orange, toffee, wood stain. Fish sauce, grapefruit, bbq hotplate and some minerals when a fair bit of water is added.
Palate: Massive grunt without water, the banana, oak and orange still show through with some big cayenne pepper heat. A little water smooth’s things a bit and brings out toffee, barbequed corn, sour dough, still plenty of spicy heat though(hot sauce). Even more water brings out vanilla custard, a metallic element though not unpleasant and even a little ash.
Finish: Depends on how much water of coarse but the following are present, grapefruit, toffee, banana, leather satchel, orange, nutmeg, mineral’s, oak, ash, bbq hotplate.
Last Word: A brute that needs taming with a fair splash of water. None the less, I have never had a Mars AWO cask matured whisky that has failed me yet.
Rating: 87/100
It will be interesting to see how this develops/changes as the bottle volume decreases (if any at all). Like most things, as you know, a big change often occurs at the half way mark. I tried the 88 Sherry the other day, fantastic, have yet to try the 89 AMO. While on Mars, did you get a bottle of the Komagatake 10yo Wine Cask finish? Tried that also but I personally will not be buying a bottle.
I honestly don’t expect much of a change Clint. That’s based on previous and current experiences with other Mars AWO cask bottling’s I have open. I have found at least one of their sherry cask bottling’s has mellowed out a little on the sulphur side half way through. Haven’t tried the 10YO WCF, at least I don’t remember having done so. Would try but as the NAS WCF is so good for the price, I’d probably pick up another couple of bottles of those first. Cheers Brian