Tastes

Nose: Creme brûlée, vanilla extract, oak, marzipan, pepper, toast, green apple, pear. Bourbon notes. Taste: vanilla, pepper, bitter almond, and oak. Preferable to Jameson and usually a few dollars cheaper.

Nose: big briny medicinal peat with orchard fruits in the background. Taste: peat like liquid electricity, wood smoke, with notes of soggy cut grass, old leather, green apple, lavender, and wintergreen mint. A classic must-try.

Nose: fumey. Bitter orange, vanilla extract, mead, faint sherry tones, sulphur, vegetal, and peppery peat. Taste: pear, sour apple, honey, pepper, cinnamon, dry sherry, bitter almonds, raisins, with the pepper increasing in the finish accompanied with a kiss of peat. More flavorful than other blended scotches I’ve had in its class and price point, but its youth is still apparent and better suited to take on the rocks than neat. For a sipping whisky, the extra dollars to step up to the Black Label are worth it.

Nose: Earthy and savory peat. Bacon, pineapple (hmm, a deliciously burnt Hawaiian pizza?), sherry, chardonnay, and spice. Taste: peat reminiscent of electric fire, smoked bacon, grass, fresh leather, mint, spice, green pepper, all framed by a light fruitiness. The finish further gives a hint of bitter dark chocolate as the peat brightens and lingers (reminding me of that ozone after-rain smell).

Nose: vanilla, pear, honey, zest, green apple, apricot, toffee. Taste: honey and peach/pear mostly. Apple and light oak. Not as complex as the nose. Light tasting finish with darker fruit notes, heather honey, and pepper.

Batch 65, abv 59.5%. Big vanilla, praline, dried dark fruit, oak, lemon peel, and sweet sherry on the nose. Strong but clean alcohol, sherry and vanilla up front, bourbon-like (wild turkey), raisin, peach, prune, cherry, ginger, lemon. With water, citrus and more floral notes open up.