Tastes

I have been dying to try Legent, the bourbon form Beam Suntory that is basically an American Whiskey with a Japanese technique and collaboration. This one has been matured in wine and sherry casks, and it was made by Fred Noe & Shinji Fukuyo, which should offer you a high level of complexity. It starts in standard bourbon barrels, then it is transfered to french wine casks and finished in sherry oak. It has 94 proof (47%abv). On the nose, a proper Bourbon aroma. Bananas, cherries, prunes and coconut. It is Ferrero's coconut sweets called Raffaello. Beautiful thick caramel. Very complex and rich. On the palate, it is sour and yeasty. It has maraschino cherries notes. Metallic. After a couple of sips, the flavor fell a little. Dim vanilla water. Aftertaste is the best part. Long, spicy and sulphuric. Red fruits and spices; it resembles a lot to a rye whiskey. Overall, this is a nice bourbon, with a high floor but a low ceiling. I would be glad to have a bottle of this since i believe it is better than most "normal" bourbons, and the bottle is very good looking. Good flavors and aromas, a nicer finish. My score for it is 85 over 100.

The third release of Glenfiddich's Perpetual Collection, exclusive for travel retail, is this 15yo called "Vat 3", describes itself as "Rich & Sweet", which is always a bad sign in my humble opinion. It is matured in vats that have never been emptied, something that "Fiddich" have been doing for years. Bottled at a surprising 50.2%abv. On the nose, it starts with spicy gooseberries, Spicy pears. There is this spongy cake note as well. Definitively pear. Not very powerful. After letting it breath, i get sweet milk & coffee. Fruit salad. Dulce de leche with red apples. On the palate, classic Glenfiddich notes: Pear and apples. Some caramel sweetness. After the first sip i get apples dipped in dulce de leche. Aftertaste was really incredible. Powerful spice bomb out of nowhere. Wasabi and chilli. Nice stuff. There is a lovely fruitspice and Tobacco. Overall, this is an above average Glenfiddich and that is because it has a great finish. The rest of the criterias were the expected profiles on any release from this distillery. I could enjoy this whisky any day, but i won't buy it again, since it can also be forgotten easily. My score for this one is 84 over 100.

Edradour, that beautiful small distillery that loves to experiment with diferent wine casks for their maturations, have release some crazy expressions like this Blaufränkisch Mariental Cask Finish, which is harder to pronounce that to taste. A Blaufränkisch Mariental is basically a dark skinned grape used in german red wines. This one is an Edradour bottled at a lovely 57.5%abv, with a beautiful chesnut color, 12yo, one of only 408 bottles ever made. On the nose, fantastic stuff. Red fruits, grapes, moka, marmalade, dates and drak chocolate. Wow, just wow. After letting it breath it gave me maraschino cherries in steroids. Then it became more lactic. White milk chocolate. On the palate it is powerfully delicious. Red fruits and Hershey's strawberry syrup. Yummy. Aftertaste is beautiful as well. Ginger and macerated red fruit liquor. Very winey. Powerful and long. It reminds me of a very high end Maker's Mark Bourbon, like the FAE-01. Overall, this is a masterpiece. The best part is that this one is not expensive at all considering the level of complexity and flavor that is delivered here. An absolutely lovely single malt, i hope you can pronounce Blaufränkisch, because i can't. My score for it is 96 over 100.

Australian malt, Starward has a peated finish expression, a 48%abv bottle, with a nice curiosity: it has been finished in an Islay peated barrel. Much has been said about peated water or peated barrels, but the reality is that peat ppm only comes from peated malt. This was filled in 2017 and bottled in 2022. On the nose, it is not peaty. A classic red apple note, cinnamon and toffee. Vanilla powder. Not much else. On the palate, i believe this is a sub-par whisky. Cinnamon, apples, some spiciness and sulphur. Aftertaste is where the peat can be found. Smokey, burnt hay, grass, salt and some spices. Overall, this one did not impressed me at all. It has some classic flavors, but it is far too simple for a 48%abv dram. Peatiness is almost inexistent till the finish and then it is very dim. My score for it is 73 over 100.

Another day, another Ardbeg Committee Special limited release with lots of marketing behind it, and of course, people like me who keep buying their stuff. I know that lately i have been a little rough on my critics to this legendary distillery, but i guess they heard the complaints of certain whisky enthusiast because let me give you and spoiler to this review: this expression was actually amazing. Ardbeg Anamorphic tells a story in 4k. It is labeled as a "multidimensional" whisky. The alleged technique behind it is that they have removed the barrel heads and charred them separatedly. Also they used a heavy charring on the ex bourbon barrels to produce an efect called "High Mocha", which honestly seems made up. Bottled at 48.2%abv. On the nose, it is great and super interesting. Aromas should take you to some realm of memories and the first thing anamorphic gave me was the aroma of the gas used to replentish the A/C in my house. Dark chocolate followed with some notes of moss and grass. It is spicy on the nose. After letting it breath, it gave me plastic, latex, a fresh can of tennis balls. It also became lactic; like some home made dulce de leche. Impressive really. On the palate, it was outstanding. Starts sweet and lactic with vanilla and chocolate milk. Then it became a "matahambre" which is a very popular pork cut for BBQ here in Ecuador. Aftertaste was beautiful. So peaty and powerful, moss and rubber. Overall; i have to be honest, i was incredibly surprised on how good this is. I drank it alongside various friends and this was the clear winner of the night. This is Ardbeg in a fine state. It has to be said: this time they nailed a pseudo-limited release. My score for it is 24 points in each criteria, leaving it with 96 points out of 100.

The second and very fancy (and pricy as well) release of the "Extinct Blends Quartet" from Compass Box, was this "Delos". Of course i got my hands on it after absolutely enjoyed the first expression, Ultramarine. This second chapter tells the story of a not so long extinct blend from their own company, the Compass Box Asyla, (which is so common that i didn't even know it was gone in 2018), a higher abv spin-off of that blend gets the name of Delos, a verybold Greek Island, where beautiful mosaics still exist even if the island is deserted. Actually this is a mythological island that the Greeks once believed rised from under the sea because the sea god Poseidon lift it up using his trident by order of Zeus, just for his children Apolo and Artemis to have a place to play. Well the fancy bottling comes at 49%abv, and let's see if it is as good as Ultramarine was. On the nose, this is super-mega-hiper fruity. Pear, green apples, pineapple, banana, lemon and fruitspice. A little sugary and glazed. After a sip, the aroma changed into a more yeasty profile: a small town bakery shop and spongy cakes. On the palate, it was not super impressive, but fairly good. Creamy, spicy; stewed apples, bananas. More sips revealed a ghostly hint of smoke. Aftertaste was undoubtedly the best part. A dry, red chilli sensation; with mineral, sulphur and metallic notes. Cough syrup, smoky and greasy. Beautiful stuff here. Overall i wasn't the best fan of Asyla back in the day, and i think this second release is inferior to Ultramarine. Having said that this is not a bad whisky at all, the score feels a little higher that what it should be, and that is because it scored good points on the finish. For the price it was sold, this is not the best deal out there, but i believe this can gain value overtime with the whole collection. A honest rate for it is 89 over 100, it was very near to achieve the 90 points but it didn't make it.

I have already talked about that back in 2011, Dalmore release a collection destined to gather funds to help the preservation of Scotland's rivers Tay, Tweed, Spey and Dee. After having one expression, i have doubts of the overall quality of this drams, since that first one, Tweed Dram, was good but nothing too memorable. This time i opened the famous "Tay Dram", which seems to be the most expensive of the four bottlings. Bottled at 40%abv. On the nose, this is sheer perfection. Caramelized oranges, maraschino cherries, granola power bar. Red berries, chocolate and raisins. After letting it breath for a while, i got a thick moka note. Fantastic aroma. On the palate it is a little more "human". Red fruits, tobacco and plums. Strawberry marmalade. The second sip was a little weak. Strawberries, ginger, liquorice. Aftertaste is a good spin off from the rest of the criterias. Tobacco, salt, grassy, sulphur, cigar and coffee beans. Overall, this is a lot closer to a Dalmore Cigar Malt than to a Dalmore 12yo. A very good, complex, full of character dram. Lovely really, i truly enjoyed it. I believe that a higher abv could have driven this to the clouds, but still at 40%abv, this is great stuff. Of course i don't expect a charity dram to be released at 55%abv, and the fact that this single malt is really good despite the basic abv, its something that is worth mentioning. My score for it is 93 over 100.

A friend of mine got me an exciting Alexander Murray release, a 40%abv Tamdhu 7yo, which is one of my favorite malts. The "Macallan Killer" as i called it has a difficult task here to impress me at a young age and low Abv. Not an expensive bottle at all, i am just wondering if this is going to be any good. This is a good test for Tamdhu's spirit to prove itself. On the nose it starts exactly as it should, with a Milky Way Chocolate note. Snickers, hazelnut, cookie dough. Dulce de leche. After a first sip, i got some floral profile. Cigarrettes, ashes and more chocolate. Smells like an ashtray. There is peat here. Nice. On the palate, it has a rich chocolate profile. Vanilla and some sulphur/metallic notes. It became super sweet on the second sip. Dulce de leche and toffee. Aftertaste is beautifully peated. Mostly Tobacco notes; hints of earthy peat and ashes. Chocolate and hazelnut. Overall this was quite surprsing. For a 7yo dram, at only 40%abv, this is quite complex and very enjoyable. The Tamdhu Toffee/dulce de leche spirit is unmistakeable, and the slight peatiness that has always been publicized but i haven't felt before, is very present here, and i believe it is more noticeable at younger ages. My score for this very good whisky is 89 over 100.

Imagine tasting an old Ardbeg, but one so rare there was never a full bottle released of this expression. This is the case of Ardbeg's Kildalton 1981, a single malt that only reached the markets as a miniature. You have to understand that in that exact year, Ardbeg was mothballed for the first time and was reopened in 1989. Actually Ardbeg did release a 1980 Kildalton full bottle, but this 1981, a different expression, was only bottled in 5cl miniatures. To make things even crazier, this bottling happened in 2005, making this a 24yo whisky. It appeared in a rare miniature collection pack called "The Story of Peat". It comes at 52.6%abv, and of course, i drank it. On the nose, it starts mossy and swampy. Then out of nowhere, an INCREDIBLE COFFEE BEANS AND DARK CHOCOLATE aroma appeared. Yes, in Caps Lock. Inmense chocolate; Very Salty all of a sudden; Ecuadorian dark chocolate, it is the most accurate aroma note ever. Vanilla topping. On the palate, this is exquisite. Herbal, mossy, swampy, super spicy black pepper, gunpowder, grapefruits. Very powerful, lots of character. This is a swamp monster. SO POWERFUL! UNLIMITED POWER!!! (Caps lock again), Meringue. Aftertaste is perfect in every way. Smoky, salty, bonfire, gunpowder. Incredible. There is a second aftertaste 30 seconds later, which is full of salt and ashes. Amazing, super long. Overall, this is a true lost jewel. It can be found in miniature auctions, i have seen it quite a few times, but it never called my attention. After i had the Ardbeg Kildalton 2014, i decided to buy it, and then after tasting it i found out of its great history. An absolutely amazing dram on the nose, palate, aftertaste and balance, with the aggregate of a great story behind it, my score for it is 98 over 100, and i am wondering why i deducted 2 points.

I finally got to open my bottle of Glenlivet's Licensed Dram, which is the spin-off expression from one of their finest releases ever, Illicit Stills. These expressions honour the history of Glenlivet, the first whisky to obtain a legal license ever. This has been bottled at 48%abv and matured in both first filled casks, Ex Bourbon and sherry. On the nose, it starts with christmas cake, and yeast. Spongy cake. Red apples with dulce de leche; pecan pie and hot honey. Cough syrup. After letting it breath it gave me more apples and honey, but also toffee & butterscotch. Some slight ashiness on the nose. On the palate, this is truly enjoyable. Dulce de leche for a second and then: kaboom! An explosion of spices. Dulce de leche with red apples. Cinnamon, cough syrup, hot honey. Very spicy. Delicious. Aftertaste feels vintage. Tobacco, peat, burnt hay and ashes. Great stuff. Overall, this is a very enjoyable, elegant dram, with lots of character. It is as good as the Illicit Stills one, and you can see that Glenlivet picked great casks for this expressions, which i appreciate since this releases are not expensive. Great job here, my score for them is 91 over 100.