Nose
Oh wow…Smelling this is like taking a Time Machine to back in the old days with indirectly fired stills and barley that has been dried over burning peat fires (not these cold smoke ‘fire’ they use nowadays just to get things peated). The way the peated cask integrated with this already old whisky is mindblowing. It offers a big package of complex freshness, fruitiness and subtleness. WOW, just wow! Beautiful dark odors wrapped in some kind of tropical fruitiness. Autumn walks in a forest with trees loosing their leafs and pine trees spreading their smell throughout that forest. Flavors of ceder wood, tobacco and light castor sugar. The peat is not mentioned separately but it lifts the whole to much greater heights. A bit of hand warmth and a tiny drop of water release more red fruits and warming spices. This is exactly the feeling you get when sniffing an old style, high quality nose while wondering why they can’t make it like this anymore.
Taste
An accessible and gentle palate upon arrival leads in a real treat. The mouthfeel is one to die for. It is so incredibly smooth and syrupy. Loaded with warm cherry sauce topping, aged wood, Christmas spices, a wee bite of crushed black pepper. I completely forget I’m sipping a single grain. I cannot imagine people would recognize it as such when tasted blindly.
Finish
A very long and pleasing finish kicks in with aromatic pipe tobacco. I’ve smoked the pipe for a while a few years ago and I loved that distinctive vanilla flavored tobacco. Exactly that is what I’m getting here. Besides that flavors of black tea and clove bringing me to that autumn forest again.

If you want to experience those very old and unaffordable whisky from the past but don’t want to, or are not able to spent big numbers, this would be my absolute buy recommendation. It gets you there as close as it gets.