Virtual tasting: Fib Whisky with NEWAS

The North East Whisky Appreciate Society @eastwhisky is a great little group based in the north east of England who organise regular virtual tastings, this one featured @fibwhisky

The tasting was hosted by @Iain_Mundy and @Fib_Aedan from Fib.

NEWAS were founded in 2015 by @KarlGlenn8, they have a large friendly Facebook group, hold regular tastings and a now annual festival in Newcastle. Karl isn't into numbering samples - he uses funny symbols instead!

Photo: Jo Lawson

Fib Whisky launched in 2022 with their Copper and Oak series (4 of which were featured in our tasting). For this series they've bottled half of each ex-bourbon matured cask and decanted the other half into a wine or sherry cask for a short period before they will bottle as part of their Permutations series for 2023. We had a preview with the Royal Brackla.

Iain and Aedan led us through 6 of their bottlings and then stayed on to chat until nearly midnight!

Here are my brief tasting notes:

Port Dundas 2000 21yo 58.6% ABV Hogshead

Appearance: pale gold in the glass, swirls leave a hairline crack in the glass, form an inverted crown of beads and eventually fall as slow thin legs.

Nose: vanilla, buttered popcorn

Palate: sweet honey, vanilla, tropical fruit, ginger spice, lemon zest or drizzle cake, drying. 

Finish: Lingering dry cinnamon spice, honey and vanilla.

Fettercairn 2011 11yo 59.5% ABV Hogshead

Appearance: pale gold in the glass, swirls leave a thin line which beads up and falls as slow thin legs.

Nose: dunnage funk, marzipan, cherries, vanilla.

Palate: orchard fruit, , brown sugar, coffee, ginger spice, marzipan, cherries.

Finish: Long with sweet honey and marzipan.

Mackmyra 2014 8yo Cloudberry Wine finish

Appearance: pale gold in the glass, swirls leave a thin line which beads up and falls as slow thin legs.

Nose: berry fruit, cough medicine, cherries.

Palate: very sweet, cherries, milk chocolate, dried fruit, peppery spice.

Finish: long sweet and spicy.

Royal Brackla 2008 13yo 61.9% ABV Bourbon barrel

Appearance: pale gold in the glass, swirls leave a thin line which beads up slowly and falls as slow thin legs

Nose: orchard fruit, vanilla, some tropical fruit, icing sugar.

Palate: Sweet tropical fruit, vanilla, gentle peppery spice.

Finish: Lingering spice.

Royal Brackla 2008 13yo 57.1% ABV Bourbon barrel as above then 4mths, 1wk, 4d finish Red Wine

Appearance: bright red in the glass (I've never seen another whisky this colour before!), swirls leave a hairline crack in the glass, form an inverted crown of beads and eventually fall as slow thick legs.

Nose: orchard fruit, berries, icing sugar.

Palate: very dry, very sweet, tropical fruit, berries, balsamic vinegar. 

Finish: Lingering berries and spice.

Bunnahabhain (Peated) 2013 8yo 57.6% ABV Bourbon barrel

Appearance: pale gold in the glass, swirls leave a hairline crack in the glass, form small beads and fall as slow thin legs.

Nose: bonfire on a beach - smoke, salinity, tropical fruit.

Palate: sweet tropical fruit, dry ashy smoke, salinity. 

Finish: Lingering salt, smoke and dry spice.

Overall a really nice set of drams, the Port Dundas was a superb example of this closed distillery, the Fettercairn was a little different from the distillery's OBs. The Mackmyra was very weird, you'd never expect the berry fruit notes from the colour. Some in the group asked if it was even whisky! The Royal Brackla was a typical offering: fruity and dry with a little spice but it's wine cask finished 'other half' was a different beast altogether! Just over 4 months in a wine cask had totally transformed it's colour and added some huge berry notes - really nice. The Bunna was a typical Staoisha: smoke, tropical fruit and spice with a little salinity - nice!

Wine finished Royal Brackla

Unfortunately Aedan passed away just 2 short weeks after this tasting...

You can catch up with the whole session over on NEWAS' youtube channel.