Review #20: SMWS - A Sunny Day in Late Summer

This is the whisky I sneaked into a holiday party in a flask. And this was a holiday party that had 8 open bars. I ended up pouring many of the bartenders secret sips of it.

The act of sneaking in fancy whisky has gotten to become a bit of a holiday tradition. It started because I get a bit nervous about holiday party open bars, because sometimes the rules are that the base spirit must be put into a free-poured, unbalanced cocktail and you can’t get the base spirit on its own. So I always sneak in a flask. Luckily, when I inevitably get my purse checked by a security guard, they never are usually on the lookout for a flask (frankly many of them are flummoxed that someone would sneak alcohol into an open bar environment) and they let me through.

SMWS - A Sunny Day in Late Summer 64.97

Overview

8 out of 10. Average. Excellent. Remarkably above average. (Our rating system)

TLDR: “Fun and fruity hookah.”

Overview: With every smell, I smell a different fruit. Palate is fruity, bright, and has a bit of rye spice. A bit on the hot side though and needs water.

Bought for: $100 at SMWS

Tasting Notes

Nose: Jelly Belly factory, juju fruit candies, sweet lemonade and fresh pressed apple juice, banana chips, and laundry. On further nosing, there is some oak spice and sawdust. Sometimes I smell peach.

Palate: Silky and fruits, bright apples and lemon dipped in caramel, but the alcohol overwhelms the palate a bit without water. It becomes hard to taste - and to be honest, I coughed (which I usually don’t with even the strongest ABVs). Aftertaste is hot and a bit licorice and absinthe-like.

Palate with Water: Bright. Lemon and vanilla meringue, lemon cleaning fluid, caramel, and some drying leather and tobacco finish at the end.

Additional Information

9 years old
Distilled in 2008 by SMWS #64 (Mannochmore)
Cask: Refill barrel/ex-bourbon
Speyside
ABV 60.7% (wow!)
$100/bottle, 222 bottles released

About SWMS and Mannochmore:

SWMS was founded in 1970s and focuses primarily on single cask, single malt whiskies (but has recently branched out into blended scotches, rums, armagnacs, and more!)
First number on a bottle corresponds to the distillery (our comprehensive guide here) and second one is the bottling number by SMWS from that distillery
Mannochmore is a Diageo workhorse that is rarely bottled on its own but is found in a lot of blends
Official tasting notes can be found in this article