Tastes

Well I’ll go to the bottom of our stairs, as we say back home: England makes decent whisky. A veritable salad of fruits, with a finish that skews to something akin to a Cotswolds cider. Who needs Scotch when you can get this tariff free?

Not your valfather’s Highland Park: the peat punches with the ferocity of a tattooed seaman, amplified by the rich undercurrent of the wine influence. Delicious, expensive.

Soft on the nose and in the mouth, this leans more to a bourbon palate than the spicy signature I expect of Whistlepig. Where it redeems itself is on the finish, which is long and chocolatey. Worth tasting if you’re offered a pour - I got a couple at a tasting event this evening - but there’s no reason to add to your home bar unless you must have the beautiful bottle it comes in.

Revisiting this as I noticed the bottle was almost empty, though I have another one stashed away. Still one of my all time favorites.

Similar to the 13, which I gave a glowing review, but I found this one harsher on the finish. Maybe the slightly higher ABV on the 14 breaks the balance for me. Water hurts more than it helps, flattening the flavors and blunting the viscosity.

This collaboration between Compass Box and BrewDog is a UK-only release meant to be drunk alongside beer as a Boilermaker. I tried a small sample on its own and found it lacking in personality. There’s grain in this blend, so it’s a lot softer than many Compass Box whiskies. The malt component includes Clynelish, but I couldn’t detect any of its characteristics.

Lovely caramel nose but too rough on the back of the throat to enjoy neat. Tasted at an event marking the launch of an outstanding Maker’s Mark Private Select bottle.

I didn’t think much of this when I opened the bottle a couple of weeks ago with @PBMichiganWolverine but a second tasting proved more rewarding. The nose combines a Springbank-like funk with a sprinkle of peat and a hint of sherry, though it doesn’t survive the water you’ll need to add before drinking. Neat, this powerful whisky is too searing on the throat to enjoy. Knocked back to 50%, it still tastes unbalanced at first: the dirty peat doesn’t feel well integrated with the Kilkerran spirit, which in its un-peated form is one of the best new whiskies of the century. Give it some time, though, and the mix of funk, peat and a sherry-tinged finish will coalesce into a more enjoyable harmony. It’s still very much a work in progress but even in its first iteration worth a taste or two.

Hot on the tail of Ardbeg’s elegant Traigh Bhan comes its evil alien twin, a fresh iteration in the highly peated take-no-prisoners Supernova series. There’s no information on where its peat comes in on the ppm scale, but I clearly remember the 2014 version being so potent you could smell the smoke wafting out of the bottle. The 2015 dialed the smokiness down a notch in favor of a slightly sweeter profile, and it’s that version which appears to set the template here. Neat, it’s nowhere near as immediately peaty as the last two visitations. There’s camphor and lemongrass, but it’s not grossly out of whack with a typical Ardbeg, and therefore quite lovely. In the mouth, the peat explodes and clings to the side of the tongue on first sip. Once the numbness clears a tangy sweetness emerges, followed by a long slow fade to a treacly finish. An aftertaste of chilli spice keeps you company for a while. What elevates this whisky from interesting to great is a drop of water. It’s really quite transformative. The aroma of peat is kicked up to a pleasant nasal-decongestant level, even as the anesthetic qualities in the mouth recede in favor of a good balance of pepper, sweetness and tanginess. It’s not too dissimilar to an Octomore - at least those versions that eschew wine casks - though it doesn’t match the best of that series and costs more. Still, I found myself craving another glass. A welcome invasion.

This was one of more than two dozen whiskies I sampled at the Whisky Show, so don’t expect nuanced notes or a meaningful rating. What I can say is that it is very different from its Ardbeg-led predecessor and perhaps as delicious. I got two distinct pulses of flavor - a blast of peat followed by a wave of richer sherry notes. It’s an unusual two-step structure that suggests this is a sequel akin more to Godfather II than Jaws: The Revenge. I eagerly await an opportunity for a more considered tasting.