These old Manager’s Drams by UD/Diageo are always total beasts, it’s to be wondered if they didn’t hire their managers from a tae kwon do school at some point. Colour: full amber. Nose: yes you can nose it, provided you take quick and short sniffs. In that case, you’ll get a lot of chocolate and coffee, fab notes of oloroso, orange marmalade and something beefy in the background. But let’s not take any further risks and add (quite) a few drops of water… And it got superb! The same classic aromas of a well-matured sherried malt but also lots of tobacco and leather, smoked tea, orange blossom honey, a little incense, faint whiffs of peat smoke, a little soy sauce and balsamico… And these beefy notes again. Just superb. Mouth (neat): bang! Well, it’s drinkable but we need our throat for other malts, so let’s try it with water right away… Okay, maybe it’s not as totally stunning as on the nose but what a great malt whisky. More resinous than on the nose, maybe just faintly winey, with quite some raisins and notes of old dark rum. And a very long finish all on salted liquorice. Top notch again, congrats Mr Williams (Oban’s manager when this was bottled).