Tastes

It has a very strange nose - both boomimg smoke and deep sweetness think pork belly more than bacon. It's right on the edge of fascinating and disgusting. When I started the bottle and poured the first dram several months ago I thought I had made a mistake. The sea and brine - the smoke - is there in spades, but so are the sweet rich sherry 'dark berry' flavors - the whole thing is oily and coats everything. The scent is strong enough to be caught in passing through the room. Is this the strangest edge of scotch-land?

The nose on this is right on the line between really appealing and slightly disgusting. This leaves me fascinated and while it sounds gross it invokes the same appeal that some people (myself included) have toward the smell of gasoline. It's light and floral and sickeningly pungent with intense notes that I struggle to describe. Love it.

Blended exotica captures a cornucopia of flavors and leaves me in slight wonderment each time I drink it. The heat of the whiskey (51.4%) doesn't even come close to overwhelming it. A strong apple nose and a creamy mix of oak and caramel remains light in the mouth while hinting of mysterious unknown spices.

Light wood nose with clear ethanol notes. The fiery front end and first bite hits strong but washes into the mid-pallet with a lot of sweetness and caramel flavor.

It's a strange velvety smoked pork belly - both sweet and savory. A face-full of meat with a unique nose that it both repellant and intoxicating. Ultimately it fights the edge of fascinating and unusual with a dark sweet-sea malted funky and aggressive flavor that is definitely unique.

It manages to capture everything that is good about highland scotch without managing to wandering into great. Warm and inviting the light peat balances against the overall sweetness and sherry notes. Honestly I imagine this is a scotch that is divisive on the top end, the dividing line between good and great for different people.

This dame has a full malty nose that I was not expecting and it also has a total lack of 'woody' details that is notable. It's a bit... 'alcohol flavored' at a level that exceeds it's ABV but in the best possible way.

Nose has a brutal edge to it, nearly slicing my sinuses off with it first blush. Moving past the alcohol bite bit there are deep barrel smells that overwhelm. On the palate it's slightly smoother than expected, but still packs a ton of tannic punch. It stings and makes me ponder why I bother with anything. This isn't the best attribute in a whiskey and I'd pass if you were casually interested. Glad I can replace the bottle with something else.

The edge is malt, but as you dive deeper bam: deep fruit, berry with toffee and grape. It remains dark as the scent of the barrel is deep and lingering. The mouth is full of wood smoke and rich with earthy flavor and the 46.5% gives it a bit of a burn.