Springbank's limited cask-finish releases are issued in small parcels throughout the year, and the distillery has a long habit of experimenting with fortified wine wood. Marsala — the Sicilian fortified wine that has shared shelf space with sherry and Madeira in British cellars for two centuries — has appeared occasionally in the Springbank programme, and this 9 Year Old fully matured in ex-Marsala casks is one such bottling.
It is bottled at cask strength, non-chill-filtered and without added colour, in line with the standard Springbank presentation. Nine years is young by the distillery's measure, and the Marsala wood here is doing a great deal of the talking, but the underlying spirit — oily, slightly funky, faintly smoky from the coal-fired stills — holds its ground.
The nose is rich with raisin, almond and orange marmalade, the brine and coal smoke of the house quietly underneath. The palate is sweetly fruited in a sherry-adjacent way, walnut and dark honey building over an oily peat that gives the wine influence something to push against. The finish runs long, drying through wood spice and dried fruit with smoke trailing the last of the warmth.
It is not a contemplative old Springbank, but it is an honest younger one — robust, well integrated and characteristically uncompromising. Marsala is an under-used wood in Scotch, and the Mitchells' willingness to bottle a single-cask experiment of this kind is part of what keeps Springbank interesting.
