Tastes

Cheap enough for a 12 YO. A fusel alcohol nose, with caramel struggling to push through and little else. The taste and finish is rather bland for me, it was just a bit difficult to get past that initial solvent-like nose. Diluted with tonic water it's acceptable but not that great in a Rob Roy. Funnily enough I found their NAS acceptable some years ago and thought this would be interesting to try.

Caramel, orange peel, and vanilla. Textural and sweet with an oily edge. Christmas cake, almonds, citrus, spice, and some lemony sherbet notes. The finish is long and bitter/sweet with toffee, vanilla, and citrus oils. This is a good step up from the standard 12 YO. 48% and non chill-filtered, but unfortunately it looks as if clolouring has been added. Very nice to drink neat and a few drops of water doesn't ruin the experience. A happy purchase at a reasonable price.

Good to see non chill filtering and natural colour, bottled 03/2017. Immediately spicy, with licorice, caramalised orange peel and apple notes. At full strength there's a prickly attack of strong spice and heat. Adding a little water reveals fudge-like buttery caramel along with citrus, apple, and pear fruits. The finish is initially sweet and spicy with grapefruit bitterness cutting through leaving the palate dry and to some extent short. Overall it's lively and fun. My only complaint is the bitterness in the finish making it slightly out of balance for me, but otherwise highly enjoyable. Have a few other bottlings of this on hand and will see how they compare.