[October 2017]  The Springbank 12-year old Cask Strength editions are the best bang for your bucks you can get from this legendary distillery.  Some of them are truly great but all are above average (at least the ones I tried so far)...

The colour is old gold and the texture shows slow legs and late tears.  The nose is delicate and complex on nice herbal-grassy-fruity aromas in great balance.  It is not bold but it is really interesting to explore.  The mouthfeel is excellent:  warming and coating with no distracting moments, I like that!  This is what careful distilled whiskies can offer (if the stills are not rushed to maximise throughput).  The taste is...delicious!  No, I do not describe it here - simply find it out yourself if you dare!  And the finish is long, barley sweet and offers the same high complexity as the taste (herbs, spices, fruits, sugars and more).  Water opens up both the nose and taste that offer even more aromas and flavours - but I like this dram both neat and reduced with some water.  This is a great example how a high quality whisky changes with water added but still stays a high quality dram.  

I have to buy a bottle or two to save it for later.  Another great and affordable release of this lovely distillery.  ...and I will tell this to the staff in person at my next visit there - that is planned and booked already...

Incredible nose on this one; rich sweet malt with thick vanilla with soft fruity sensation. Hard to stop noising.

Palate; sweet full malty richness with condensed mango,  caramel, with light spices.Medium finish with richness that lingers with a touch of dryness on the end .

A real beauty. No heat on the nose or palate. 

The best bang for the buck as it was only $89cnd. WOW!

Edit: I very slight bitterness has creeped in on the back end of the finish near the end of the bottle after 5 weeks of being opened. Score reduced down from 92 to 91.

Sulphur.

I think this is my favorite batch in a long long time. I've been buying the 12 CS'ers since they first came out, avoiding the sulfuric ones like the plague. The rest will always find a place on my shelf. This one is so old skool with vintage leather, just the right balance of spices. There's paraffin in there like the 16 Local Barley along with wet pumice, apple strudel, whipping cream, salt, caramel apple, ozone, and cinnamon.

The palate is drinkable without water, but a little helps to round things out. I'm left with leather and paraffin on the tongue, moving from the back to the tip. Not as much side stimulation on the sides of one's tongue as with some older batches. This usually means more oak tanins.

Marshmallow and drizzled caramel on ice cream also comes out with some water. If you drink it neat, you get some bitter grass sap, but that's just a few cells on the tip of your tongue giving up the ghost. Not to worry, there are more where those came from.

Drinking good whisky is all about regeneration and culling the old for the new. The finish on this one can go sharp without water, as I've said. It almost tastes a little bit sulfuric, but this depends upon what I've eaten an hour or so earlier. Food and drink can affect the taste of a whisky. I think this one goes nicely with honey and butter on toast in the evening as a late night snack. It also goes quite nicely with English Breakfast tea and milk. I guess that sounds silly. I've had this dram in the morning, as well. It's a great "go-to" Springer. Stock up while you can. *Tea and crumpets optional.* So also is a copy of The Hill of Dreams by Arthur Machen:

"There was a glow in the sky as if great furnace doors were opened. But all the afternoon his eyes had looked on glamour; he had strayed in fairyland. The holidays were nearly done, and Lucian Taylor had gone out resolved to lose himself, to discover strange hills and prospects that he had never seen before. The air was still, breathless, exhausted after heavy rain, and the clouds looked as if they had been molded of lead. No breeze blew upon the hill, and down in the well of the valley not a dry leaf stirred, not a bough shook in all the dark January woods. . . ."