What a beautiful olfactory spectrum.

whiskyfun

Ben Nevis 21 yo 1998/2019 (55.4%, Hidden Spirits, sherry, cask #BN9819, 279 bottles) Five stars
Do the 1998s match the 1996s? Let’s see… Colour: deep gold. Nose: meats this time, soy sauce, jamon iberico, glutamate, bouillons, a little leather and some tobacco, then damp plaster and drops of Thai sauce. Look, I know there are probably thousands of different Thai sauces, but there, the red ones that you would pour over any stewed crab claw. What’s the name again? With water: perfect dry nose, or when the cask and the distillate did complement each other to perfection. Blue Mountain coffee, crude cocoa, old walnuts (no one in particular, lol), palo cortado, whiffs of exhaust fumes, umami sauce..; Could be that BN and dry oxidative sherry would just tango to perfection when the proportions are right. Mouth (neat): simply further fortified oloroso. Or distilled oloroso? I shall try to do that one day, as sherry’s become so cheap (which is totally unjust and would make you lose faith in the drinking mankind). With water: the rarest chocolates, the best coffees, and some just perfect salty, umami-y brown sauces. Finish: long and much saltier, with a bit of Ben Nevis’s trademark ‘soft’ dirtiness. So not just vanilla-ed ethanol. Monosodium glutamate. Comments: the saltiness keeps growing even after the aftertaste. I would happily tell you more about this dram but both the wee bottle and the glass are now empty. *** carried away ***
SGP:462 - 91 points.

Way too much bad sulphur for my taste.

Ben Nevis 21 years old, 1998 - 2019, 55.4%. Cask: BN9819 for Hidden Spirit.

One of the most difficult bottles to obtain this year. A media slaughter on social networks has almost killed all possibilities of obtaining it normally. (Sold in pack).
But after multiple visits to LMDW, yes, it's good, it's on the side, then finally no, we can't sell it to you, then, yes again, I got it.
Let's see this little beast from every angle.

● The coat: copper, large drops, slow and spaced.

● Rancio, walnuts, Jerez wine, Olorosso. Well oxidative.
An old wood.
The soybeans heated in the pan then the four quarter which comes out of the oven, hot butter.
Milk chocolate, prunes and cherry in brandy.
Freshness escapes, mint.
I let breathe.
Fantastic !! Manjari dark chocolate, tangy and very fruity: blackcurrant and blueberry in jam.
Leather and brown tobacco.
What a nose!

● In the mouth it is sweet, the liquid covers the entire palate.
It is clean and neat, very oxidative aromas reminiscent of nuts, old wood, earth and leather, brown tobacco.
A Sherry Olorosso, clearly.
Lots of tannins, peppery power and bitter liquorice.
Everything is very dry.
Time, a salty touch, retro olfaction pushes dark chocolate, coffee beans, and dark fruits.
Leather again.

● the finish is relatively long, dry, with a salty return, a salt that is difficult to target, rather saline, the bonito dried at first sensation, the one I usually take at Atami.
Astonishing.
Long persistence on this black pepper and tannins, the minerality ends.

An amazing whisky, it certainly deserves a very long opening, and will develop really later. I left him 1 week before describing it.
The nose is fabulous, makes you want to dive in, the mouth is rich and fine, dry, saline and oxidative, obviously dominated by the notes of Sherry, it's a good whisky but, but ... but I don't know .

If it had to be given a subjective score, it would be an 88.