Tastes

If Loch Lomond 12 were a book, it would be called The Curious Case of Benjamin Button... not because it’s a rather curious malt, which it is, but rather the memories it evokes keep taking me further back in time: 2-cycle oil and grass clippings move to an ashy bonfire and finishes with cherry robitussin. It is weird I dig these flavors?

Buttered croissants and bread pudding... Unreal! This might be the most intoxicatingly delectable smell from a whisky. I am now going to douse my face mask with this everyday before leaving the house. Screw you Covid! I win.

Are port finishes the best thing to happen to whisky since Roosevelt got America’s head out of its own ass? I’ll let you be the judge. Scratch that! I’ll be the judge because it’s my review. Port + whisky = Phoebe Cates emerging from a pool. Drink it in and release a quart or so. Enjoy!

Close your eyes and you’re transported back to 1994 (or whenever you were 13). You’re under the football bleachers occupying your time between equal intervals of a cherry tootsie pop and your girlfriend’s frenched tongue. It doesn’t get much more magical than this.

You’re camping in the woods, deeeeeep inside, not coniferous but rather the deciduous kind, and you decide to start a fire. It’s been raining for weeks, so there’s no dry wood. All you see is moss, dead logs, and saplings. No way on earth will you get this crap to burn, so you light the only thing that might possibly hold a flame, a piece of chocolate cake you brought with. Not the crap store-bought or follow-the-directions-to-a-T box recipe, but this cake had homemade love put into it... dark chocolate, cherries, too much cream, you get the idea. You set that thing ablaze and smoulder it with the plethora of damp flora surrounding you. You bottle that... and you’re Octomoring! (9.2)

This is one of the best peated Islays that’s reasonably priced. I don’t know why it doesn’t get more love. It has a little of everything! The light peat is like a Canadian that insults you then apologizes for being too aggressive.