Tastes

This might just be the best value I've found in the scotch world, particularly for peat/smoke/Islay fans. It's like a middle-class-man's Octomore. Total peat bomb. Oily, peaty, smokey, meaty, aftertaste lasts forever. I love it, great stuff. This is at the "buy another bottle before I finish my current bottle" level. Truly tremendous.

Fruity notes, like dark cherry notes. Complex and delicious. Spice up front but less bite overall, and not in a bad way.

You can't technically call this a bourbon, but it's basically a bourbon with a twist - it's aged in used bourbon barrels instead of brand new ones. But the result is you have a lot of the same bourbon notes you're used to, the corn, the oak, the vanilla and peppery rye. But putting it in used barrels gives it this unique profile that you're not used to with a standard bourbon, and I love it for that reason. The pepperyness is smoothed out and the vanilla notes feel a little amplified. You get a little less of the dry oaky flavor, it's still there but less dry and biting. Sweeter than a standard bourbon, but not overpoweringly so. This stuff is great, I'll be coming back.

Clearly I'm missing something, or a few taste buds, because this stuff is massively praised as a great value whiskey, and I just don't get it. I've had boring whiskeys, but this is straight up unpleasant to me. I get a huge note of banana flavoring syrup - like the stuff they have at coffee shops - it tastes like someone poured a heap of that in my whiskey. The most sickeningly sweet whiskey I've tasted that wasn't actually flavored after the barrel, ie Fireball or Southern Comfort. This gets an actual "yuck" from me. Again, maybe I'm crazy.