Tastes

When I had this, I suddenly thought, "What is up with this weird ABV that somehow Bunnahabhain and Ledaig both decided would be their bottling strength?" Google quickly informed me that the two have shared ownership, which now makes sense. Ledaig is a peated scotch from the Isle of Mull, a bit south of Islay, and in everything but geographical origin basically is an Islay scotch. It has a nice, peaty entry, with a warm, buttered toast, crispy-crust smoke, but also a healthy dose of new-log-on-the-campfire aroma. Other than that, I get a citrus lemon or lime combination very similar to Kilchoman Machir Bay and Ardbeg 10, with just a hint of minerality. The palate is sweeter than those two, but the flavors don't pop quite as much. Its light, pleasant sweetness kind of makes me imagine what a peated Glenmorangie would be like. The finish is mellow peat, woodiness and grassiness, salt and brine, and then a bit of tang or acidity at the very end. This scotch reads to me like a more mature version of Machir Bay, but I'm missing some of that youthful energy. They are quite close, though, and honestly I would mistake one for the other easily in a blind tasting.

Port being my favorite fortified wine, I was fairly confident I would enjoy this scotch. Its aromas are heavenly and present a nice array of dessert scents, including (as expected) port, glazed donut, marzipan, and peach cobbler. The palate is a bit of a letdown because it's almost too easy drinking, if that makes any sense. It feels a smidgen too gentle and thin, and it's hard to believe it's 46%. This is a real dessert scotch, with light vanilla, cream, and a fresh fruit taste (as opposed to the stewed or dried fruit flavors characteristic of sherry aging). The finish is sweet honey, syrup, and a hint of baking spices. This scotch is similar to, perhaps a slightly better version of, Balvenie DoubleWood.

I think Bunnahabhain's decision to up the ABV, ditch the chill filtering, and stop adding color to their single malts paid off in spades. The nose has a lovely rich, malty sweetness with a lot of floral character. The nuttiness makes me think there's a fair amount of sherry-cask aging, which would also explain the dark color. It's not complex, but it is mouthwatering. The palate confirms that it's sherry-aged -- raisins and fudge all day. It's sweet, but in an austere rather than decadent way, which distinguishes it from a Speyside dram. On the finish I get raisins, dates, and a tiny bit of brininess, with a long-lasting chest warming afterglow.

I'm giving this a tentative rating after having had a few more ryes recently, although still not entirely sure I understand the landscape well enough to provide an accurate evaluation. The nose is unlike anything I've experienced before, with a bourbon vanilla note but depleted of the usual caramel and brown sugar. There's a little dill or some other unusual seasoning. The palate is fruity, like a papaya juice, but with a crisp character. Smooth finish, without many distinct notes in it to my recollection. I may come back to this after having tried a few more staple ryes (Northern Harvest, Rittenhouse, Pikesville, High West, Willett, etc.), and try to produce a more informed rating.

Many thanks to Telex for a sample of this one-of-a-kind scotch! Imagine buying a meal at a German restaurant and then stirring some of the key ingredients -- pretzels, bratwurst -- into a glass of Ardbeg 10. It'd get a little saltier, a little funkier, a little oilier, a little meatier, and a bit darker in color. That's the best way to sum up my Kelpie experience. It is a strange, sometimes fascinating, sometimes just plain odd combination of flavors. Just as the kelpie is a shapeshifter, taking the form of a horse in the water but a strapping lad on land, this whisky's nose is complex and ever-changing. The peat here is of the woody variety, but it smells like wood that's been baking in the sun or that's just begun to heat up but before it catches fire. It's a dry, resinous scent. The nose also has some of the pungency of oil at times, yet at other times seems floral. Occasionally, it hits a classic combination of peat and brine that reminds me of Laphroaig's 2015 Cairdeas expression. All of a sudden, after getting used to all of these scents, something different emerges. There is a sweet and sour note that I can't identify, very different than the fresh citrus that I detect in Ardbeg 10. To borrow a fun word I learned from Distiller users, Kelpie also exhibits a hint of petrichor (the smell that comes with rain, like wet gravel or earth). And I'm not done yet! There is an occasional whiff of charred meat, like the smoke ring of a brisket. Last but not least, on every third or fourth whiff I get a smell that's a dead ringer for a big bucket of pretzels. I mean one of those mega-tubs of thin, dry, salty pretzel sticks that college RAs sometimes have in their dorms as a snack for their kids. The palate entry is akin to a richer, more buttery, oilier version of Ardbeg 10, with a tart but darker sweetness than in its lighter cousin. Oily, which is characteristic of Ardbeg at higher ABVs. There is plenty of peat in the palate as well, but it's a mellow peat, and the wood backbone is of the pine variety. There's also a slight pungency in the whisky that I can't place. Like the nose, the palate is complex and shifts after a second or two in the mouth. It grows very salty and briney, and perhaps is the saltiest scotch I've had to date. There is that dry, slightly chalky, salty taste that recalls the pretzels I detected on the nose, combined with a lavender-infused honey which is the most pleasant aspect of the taste. The combination of salt, some spice, and savory richness toward the end is almost like a sausage. Kelpie has a warm and salty conclusion, featuring licorice and anise sweetness and a long-lasting medicinal quality that wasn't as noticeable at the start. The peppery quality of this type of oak also stands out to me here, but the salt remains the dominant aspect of this stage. Too salty to fit squarely in my wheelhouse, but this has to be one of the more complex scotches I've ever had. Cheers!

This scotch is another example from the wide range of unusual and surprising outcomes of sherry finishing.  Here, the sherry finishing somehow transforms this scotch into something that resembles other liquors.  The nose is exactly like dark rum, much spicier than a typical scotch, but complemented by a healthy dose of oak, honey glaze, varnish, and some other bourbon-like scents.  There is a layer of raisins underneath that is more of a typical sherry note.  The palate reveals the Glenmorangie Original underlying this dram (Lasanta is the classic 10-year Original, with an additional two years of aging in sherry butts).  It has vanilla in spades, the signature Glenmorangie floral note, and is much lighter, although there are some darker, fruitier sherry notes.  The finish is a combination of berry and cherry, and longer than the Original. I like this better than the star system here indicates, it's a solid 3.5 for me.

I've long been a fan of Macallan 12.  On the nose, this scotch is a lesson in what sherry finishing can do to complement classic scotch flavors:  so much apple (as in apple pie, the dominant note for me), some darker berries, malt, vanilla, and a bit of barrel char.  The palate, although a bit thin and watery, has more apple, a clear expression of core malt flavor, and a hint of raisins.  The raisins grow in strength in the finish, along with a rich, sweet flavor like an apple turnover, and a faint sherry smoke or sulfur note (like the scent of matches).  Unlike some sherried scotches where the sherry sweetness gets too overwhelming and drowns out the malt, I appreciate that Macallan 12 still leaves room for the core scotch to be itself.  It isn't complex, but it expresses its flavors with confidence.  Bottle this at 46% and at the same price ($65 or so), and it'd be five stars.

Perhaps it was having this dram side by side with its 17-year old big brother, but I felt like the 12-year was also a sherried scotch.  According to the distillery's own website, however, this is all ex-bourbon.  One possibility is that the unusual fruit flavors of the distillery, particularly the plum and some tropical fruit notes that I picked up in both, are the product of their stills and climate, not just a particular type of cask.  It certainly would make sense, as coconut and tropical fruits are not exactly the standard result of sherry aging.  In contrast to the 17, the 12 is a little less refined but also a unique, worthwhile scotch.  The nose has more rice wine rather than plum wine and has a brinier, more iodine-laden scent.  The taste has that plum note, however, combined with malt, brine, salt, and some barrel char.  It didn't feel particularly thin despite being only 40%.  The finish is toasted vanilla, with plums and rice wine combining again with some smoke from the barrel char and brine from the sea.  This is not a peated or a sherried scotch, apparently, but it hits some similar notes along the way.  Strangely enough, the 12 is noticeably darker than the 17 despite being younger, not being aged in sherry, and being bottled at a lower ABV -- so there must be a healthy dose of coloring in there.

While a lot of Highland distilleries could be mistaken for one another, there is something quite distinct about this one. I immediately noticed a pretty distinct sherry note when I first poured it.  If there's a region I'd imagine when drinking this scotch, it's Ko Sumai -- both in scent and taste, I detect a tropical fruit sweetness, Chinese plums, coconut, lemongrass, and a floral penumbra.  The palate also has a fresh wood aspect to it, is a bit tannic (I get that signature waxy feeling on my front teeth with a sip of water after this dram), and a saltwater brininess that is another Old Pulteney signature.  The finish is warming and has some of the smokier, chocolate-like notes that sherry finishing sometimes adds, while still layering in those tart and exotic tropical fruit notes.  This is a high-end scotch, though I'm sad to hear that the distillery is discontinuing this expression and the 21-year old version due to lack of stocks.  I can't think of anything quite like it.  I must find the 21-year old before it's gone as well!

The funny thing is that this is one of the first 3-4 bottles of whisky I ever bought, but back at the time (maybe 4 or 5 years ago), I didn't really even know how to appreciate what I had on my hands. I just bought a sample to jog my memory and give this another try. On the nose I get fruitcake, so right away the sherry makes its presence known, as well as the peat. This peat is more of engine oil or diesel, however, not as much smoke. It also has a distinct, fortified wine character. The palate is a nice contrast with Ardbeg 10: more richness, less citrus. Oily texture and strong sherry notes again, along with a healthy shake of salt and pepper. Similar to the nose, the raspberry and fortified wine sweetness finds its counterpoint in a rough, heated peat. There is some detectable youthfulness in this scotch. As it dries on the tongue, oily, savory peat, bark, oak, and salt are the first flavors to arrive. It continues to stewed fruits, which is unsurprising given the strong sherry influence in the first two stages. The longest lingering notes are mint and a distinct aftertaste of cigar smoke, which is an interesting transformation from the less smoky peat that I tasted before. I tried this one side by side with Dark Cove, and liked Dark Cove slightly better because it had more savory notes, more honey, and more chocolate -- but this bottle is a better value at $80 in most liquor stores.