Tastes

Nose: Fragrant but dusky, with a lifted oak note enlivened by cinnamon and floral grape notes. There is a drying, woody and almost salty aroma like cured planks. It reminds me of wooden church pews on a warm Sunday morning. Pears, green apples and fresh-mown grass. Palate: A quite perfectly smooth sweet and dry arrival with plum and cinnamon notes. Richer fruits emerge as it develops, taking the palate on a journey from dry to sweet and back again. Dark cherries, almond paste, walnut loaf, Turkish coffee, dark 90% chocolate, dried apricots, plums and a malty sweetness. An amazing texture that is full and sweet whist being simultaneously dry and almost astringent. There are some cunning tannic elements at work that are magical in their effect. Finish: Medium. The sweet character turns dry temporarily, but relaxes to leave a sweet dark fruity aftertaste. A dry, earthy and complex whisky. It's quite remarkable, but of the three Arran cask-finishes I've just tasted (sauternes, port and amarone) this is the most difficult to engage, and was the one that I thought really improved with a little water. Dilution instantly relaxes this whisky, balances the astringent tannic notes that appear right through the profile, and a sweet grape note appears on the palate. While a purist might argue that this is actually not a positive thing, I felt that the whisky blossomed and came into its own, as if it was almost relieved to be under less stress. It's probably the least approachable of the three cask finishes, but all deserve a solid 4 stars (however the sauternes cask finish is my favourite). (tasted from a 30ml sample). "Very Good" : 86/100 (4 stars)

Nose: Rich oaky sweetness. A gentleman's study where more than a little port has spilled onto the furniture over the years. Leather chairs, tobacco, walnut oil, vanilla, orange, raspberry, black cherry, caramel After the first sip, the palate contributes aromas and the nose reveals fruit compote, sherry, espresso and oak. With time the nose gains a more delicate fragrant note. Wonderful. Palate: A rich, mildly warm , restrained sweet arrival of impeccable breeding. A little ginger, dried fruits, orange oil, raisins, sultanas, muscatels. Berries of every type, milk chocolate, baked apples with cinnamon. The texture is awesome - just to the softly silken and syrupy side of oily (drool). Finish: Medium/long. Sweet initially with fruity notes, but sliding gracefully into a demi-sec chocolate and grape finish. Masterful, with a drying late finish. Another cracking good cask finish from Arran. I don't know what else I can add, it's all in the tasting notes. Very good whisky indeed (tasted from a 30ml sample). "Very Good" : 86/100 (4 stars)

Nose: Sweet, heavy floral woody notes. Muesli and vanilla yoghurt drizzled with manuka honey ; tropical flowers in a hothouse (hibiscus and frangipani) that are dusky and almost stifling in their fleshy, dank aromatic presence. Lemon zest, pineapple, banana, stone fruits (apricot, nectarine, peach), some orchard fruit. What a seductress of a nose! Palate: Sweet arrival - very sweet, almost syrupy. The development brings out a flood of warm spicy notes that unfold like a glowing blanket, build to an almost-but-not-quite hot crescendo, and then subside to mild warmth. The texture is oily and dense and carries a host of sweet fruity and floral flavours. The seduction is complete - I submit! Finale: Medium. Sweet cereal, citrus and malty notes fade to a mild bittersweet aftertaste that is quite excellent. Standing ovation. The sauternes-fu is strong with this one. Whew, so much dessert wine influence! I know from the horse's mouth that Arran likes to use wet casks, but these must still have had liters of sauternes sloshing around in them. You'd be forgiven for thinking this would produce something franken-awful, but not at all. It's delicious and amazingly fresh and vigorous. However, don't bring expectations of po-faced elegance to the gunfight, because you'll be dead in the sand. This is all Mae West, showing her sassiest and most sophisticated side. Yee-ha! Is that a pistol in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me? This is the first of three reviews, tasting the cask-finished trio from Arran. We're off to a blazing start. This is a stunning whisky (tasted from a 30ml sample) "Very Good" : 87/100 (4.25 stars)

Nose: A rather sour grainy cereal note and some thin malty aromas. It's very spirity and full of the smell of young, low quality grain whisky. There is no cask presence at all (these barrels must have been on their very last legs) and no aroma of smoke. A very poor and generic nose. Palate: A hard, hot, and unpleasantly spiky arrival that turns instantly into bitterness accompanied by some of the worst "smoke" I've encountered on a palate. It doesn't taste like real peat-reek at all, it's more like some sort of dosage, like the awful boisé that is sometimes added to cognac, or the flavour of home-made whisky force-matured with oak chips. The texture is thin and watery. Finish: Blindingly short. A sweet/sour aftertaste lingers, but it's just the sweetness of alcohol. Horrible. I had hopes that the smoky version of Grant's bottom-shelf blended scotch would be an improvement over the standard version, but it's just the opposite. This is quite possibly the worst blended whisky I've ever tasted, and just to rub salt into the wound it is far from the cheapest bottle on the shelf. "Spurn It As You Would A Rabid Dog" : 55/100 (0.5 stars)

North Star Spirits tasting night, Sydney, 18 July 2019. Whisky #6 Nose Neat: Smoked fruit (pineapple and grapefruit) and a hint of vanilla. Strong peat-reek and woodsmoke combination with a blustery maritime note of seaweed and shells (iodine and sandy brine). Espresso and burnt match aromas. Nose Watered: The peat smoke greatly develops with the phenolic qualities being highlighted. A plastic/rubber note creeps in, but it's not intrusive. Palate Neat: The arrival is smoky and ashen with billows of peat smoke. It has a dry but rounded character that is almost but not quite sweet - something like amontillado. It's meaty and phenolic, like barbecued pork on a beach campfire, but not hot spicy at all. The alcohol content is only detectable as a drying note and the whole palate is curiously refreshing. Palate Watered: Dilution adds a good deal of sweetness and brings out mustard-seed spice, more maritime notes and a little oiliness. Finish: Long. Ashy smoke with a drying salt-iodine note. Adding water sweetens the finish and lends the aftertaste a warming quality. The prior tastings of the evening were all from North Star Spirits series 007, however this was a "guest appearance" from series 004. Tasted as a first dram of the day I'd imagine this would be quite intense and challenging, however with the palate prepared I found it to be an easily approachable and very satisfying dram. Unusually for an Ardbeg there is little salt or lemon on the nose or palate. It's very distillate driven and comes across as a revealing expression. The cask used was good but must have been refill as there is little wood contribution, but what is detectable is very fine. Independent bottlings of Ardbeg are not rare, but the distillery must charge a fearsome price for their casks and to allow their name to appear on the label, as this is very expensive for a 12 year old CS. I enjoyed tasting this whisky but the elephant in the room is the perennially excellent Ardbeg 10 official bottling, which at less than 20% of the price gets you a dram that is almost as goo. This is really only one for the hard-core Ardbeg collectors. "Excellent" : 88/100 (4.5 stars)

North Star Spirits tasting night, Sydney, 18 July 2019. Whisky #5 Nose Neat: The first aromas encountered are bright barley grist and the fresh apple cider smell of fermenting wash. However this is not at all a yeasty nose, it just has a cereal vibrancy that is infrequently encountered. Next, light fragrant honey, a little vanilla and the soft glow of that heathery peat that only comes from Orkney drift into focus. Nose Watered: Adding water tones the cereal notes and lends them a creamy, buttery touch. It also brings out fruit aromas (green apple, nashi pear, apricot), deepens the honeyed-smoke and conjures a hazy recollection of fresh maritime breezes blowing through dunnage warehouses on the hill overlooking Kirkwall (oops, that's given the distillery away!). Palate Neat: The arrival is soft, clean and crisp with a slightly oily, briny citrus note that is reminiscent of rinsed preserved lemons. This very quickly develops further sweetness with white grapes and honey emerging against a curtain of ashen smoke. Palate watered: Dilution enlarges the palate and deepens the flavour profile. The briny citrus becomes sweeter and spicier, the grape notes become sweeter and more rounded (more like sultana, but definitely not raisin), the honey becomes darker and the ashy smoke gains a tarred rope quality. A mild spicy oak note steps into view and the texture is juicy and full with just the right balance between oily and creamy. Finish: Medium/Long. Soft and slightly oily with honey, light smoke and a herbal-lemon note on the aftertaste. A supurb whisky that could only have been produced by one distillery, and you don't need to do any detective work to know which one. This brings Highland Park to mind the instant you nose it, and once you taste it the identification is irrefutable. The nose emerges in layers as it develops in the glass, and the addition of water increases this effect. It's not overly tight on neat nosing, even though it has quite high abv, rather it's a nose of subtle, simple complexity. The palette of aromas is not wide, but each feature - fruit, honey, smoke etc. - has many facets. The palate is the equal of the nose, and is an excellent example of cask-strength Highland Park at its sparkling best. If you've never tasted a CS HP I'd strongly recommend it, as it reveals the distillery character in its purest and most naked form and they are generally nothing like the official bottlings. There was a SMWS bottling last year called "Island Holiday Snapshot" and this North Star Spirits edition is reminiscent of it - but this NSS is much the superior dram. A stunning whisky and at the very reasonable asking price it is a bargain and highly recommended. The cask yielded just 370 bottles so snap one up if you see it, or live in regret. "Excellent" : 89/100 (4.75 stars)

Nose: Linseed oil, turpentine (wood, not mineral), cod liver oil, tinned peaches, hay, some fleeting citrus aromas and a hint of barrel. Palate: An oily and slightly oaky arrival with stone-fruit notes. Some vanilla, cocoanut, chilli and more oak presence come through in the development. The texture is a little thin but there is a slight creaminess. Finish: Short. Mildly spicy with oak tannins and a resinous sweet aftertaste. I don't find any great resemblance to bourbon here at all - this is much more like a heavily-oaked Irish blend without the unmalted barley notes. Actually, it's pretty representative of the Auchentoshan house style in general - resinous and citric spicy. The nose improves a little when it's left to rest in the glass, but the palate never loses it's gauche youthful buzz. Not a very exciting malt but it's inexpensive, mixes well with dry ginger ale, and is comparable to a mid-range blended scotch. Once again I fail to understand the attraction of any Auchentoshan. "Adequate" : 73/100 (2.25 stars)

North Star Spirits tasting night, Sydney, 18 July 2019. Whisky #4 Nose: Rich and dense, prunes soaked in sherry (oloroso, I'd say, but there might also be a PX cask at work), stewed fruit, fruit cake, hazelnuts, almonds, brown sugar, mocha coffee. Palate: Soft, rich, broad sherried arrival. A light oak spiciness appears in the development but the focus here is on dark fruitcake or Christmas pudding, honey, red berries, nutmeg and dark chocolate. The texture is excellently creamy. Finish: Long. The mellow fruitcake character tails off into a dry chocolate aftertaste with a tinge of chili. The nose is rich but quite sprightly and it has a bright sweet character overall. Water enhances this bright sweetness, develops more sherry, and brings out a little oak. The palate softens with time but the bittersweet note at the very end remains. I don't know what the components are in this vatting, but the palate has aspects that bring to mind any number of big, sherried Speyside malts (but perhaps not the very best or most complex). It's well balanced but arguably a bit two-dimensional (just enough to prevent me giving it more than 4 stars) - however it's certainly not just a one-note sherry bomb. This is the fourth edition of Vega and the profile is broadly the same as the prior editions. Unlike a blended malt such as Johnnie Walker Green Label or Compass Box Spice Tree, North Star Spirits' Vega is not blended in-house. Instead the company procures casks of aged, blended single malts which are then married to create each edition. Consequently the editions vary in age and detail as they depend on what the company could acquire each time, however I would not be surprised if the source has been constant. 800 bottles were produced in this edition, so I'd guess it's a marriage of 3 or 4 casks. Of the Vega editions so far I've thought the second to be the best, but this is still a very fine blended malt whisky at a fair price. "Very Good" : 85/100 (4 stars)

North Star Spirits tasting night, Sydney, 18 July 2019. Whisky #3 Nose: A full and vibrant nose with glacé fruits, buttery brown sugar, fruitcake, some excellent oloroso sherry and a very well measured oak presence which is both mature and aromatic but also sprightly. For an older blended scotch this is a surprisingly vigorous and juicy nose. Adding water deepens the nose and adds some caramel. Palate: A sweet and gentle entry featuring malt and fine oak notes. A little drying as it develops with medium-dry sherry and spicier oak emerging, but this is balanced by rich fruitcake flavours. Over time the palate gains buttery notes and become quite dulcet, and it has a chewy, firm texture that is very pleasant. Adding water softens and slightly sweetens the palate, but don't add too much. Finish: Medium. Fruity, with a lingering chocolate-malt and oak spice aftertaste. There is a very, very faint metallic tang in the background. A very good old blended scotch - it's almost like a blended malt. It has weight and character and with time and the addition of just a drop or two of water the palate gains an excellent silken texture and considerable depth. The profile is unquestionably Speyside (imagine a blend of Glenrothes and Macallan with a grain whisky and you're not too far off). This is the second edition of Spica released by North Star Spirits and it is different to the first, which was a less expensive 20 year old. In my opinion this 29 year old is much superior. Do not expect great similarity between Spica editions - there will be a family resemblance, but Spica is not blended in-house to create consistency. The company buys casks of already blended scotch that have been aged for a considerable period and then vats them for bottling. Consequently, the profile of each edition will depend on exactly what casks Iain Croucher has been able to source that time round. However, that said, both editions to date have had a similar "old, blended, unpeated, sherried Speyside scotch" character, which appears to be the defining principle behind Spica as a release. The price may seem high, but considering this is a 29 year old blended scotch that beats the living daylights out of almost every other blend (and a fair few single malts at the same price) it's worth every cent. "Very Good" : 86/100 (4 stars)