Tastes

2oz pour at The Whiskey House in San Diego Only Springbank can make garbage delicious. I get this note like your neighbor fucks abandoned cheap furniture by the trash compactor and it’s been raining all week. There’s that dank musty rotting composite leather balanced beautifully with barley and charcoal. This quite reminds me of Bruichladdich Islay barley in that the beautiful malt is really highlighted. It’s got a powerful brown sugar sweetness with yellow-orange fruits like lemons and peaches and mangoes. The Springbank rot somehow adds balance and beauty. I don’t understand it! This just reaches levels of complexity that Bruichladdich can’t match. It’s a shame I can’t get a bottle. I’ve had this at bars twice and I’m sure I can’t discover everything this whisky has to offer even if I had my own bottle. I would literally drop a few hundred for this. MARK: 95/100

2oz at The Whiskey House in San Diego Their joke spoiled this for me just a bit. My palate this year has been destroyed by dipping into budget bourbons. I picked up this awful rotten oily nutty note from Larceny that I just can’t escape in poorly matured whiskies now. This is less than 1% 3 year old Clynelish, but I can taste it. The irony here is that the youngest whisky actually does make the biggest impression. There is no reason I should be getting that young nutty whisky on the nose and palate in something that costs so much. The expensive stuff is still quite delicious in this blend. Big wafts of ginger, caramel, crystallized fruits, and leather. Quite like 1980s Brora. The 3 year old whisky is there like a crying infant at the movies. Fuck infants. Fortunately, the finish is pure and the linger is gorgeous beeswax and dark spices. I thought about buying a bottle. Now I won’t. MARK: 89/100

Motherfucker. I promised i would not like this. But it’s lovely. Burnt matchsticks with butter and apples and pears. Burnt matchsticks as always. It all comes down to if you like that sulphur. I love this shit. PRELIMINARY MARK: 95.5/100

Paid $59 (on sale) for this bottle. This is a bottle kill review. I will try to summarize what this bottle offered. Nose: Nice changes with oxidation in the bottle. This started off with green apples, vanilla, honey, and too much oak. Then, it became juicier and fruitier. Towards the end, the apples are joined by wintermelons and cantaloupes. This bottle lasted some 7-8 months. Maybe I should have left it out longer? Palate: Very green, and fitting for summer. Limes, cumumbers, wormwood, held up by the balance of sweetness from typical Balvenie honey in the mid-palate, before becoming grassy and bitter. Finish: This is a great whisky until the finish. It’s malty, woody, and minty. Meh. The complexity on the nose is more like a 15-18 year. The finish is just par for a 12 year old. To compare Balvenie to a car brand: it’s Infiniti. I mean, c’mon, is it really luxury? I’m not buying it. But, this is a pleasant surprise in the line-up, as a fairly priced whisky that demands patience, and will not appeal to the masses. Pros: Great summer whisky. Gets better after being opened. 12 years in first fill strikes a great balance between wood and spirit. Cons: This was playing way above its age statement, until the forgettable finish. Mark: 86/100 (range 84-88. N = 6)

Paid $59 for a 1L bottle at Duty Free Americas. This is a bottle kill review. I will try to summarize what this bottle offered. Nose: Desert whisky, if there ever was one. Sherry, of course. Dark rum. Cognac. Chocolate and perfume. Coffee and honey. Palate: Decent balance between the honeyed sugary maltiness of the spirit and the plums and raisins from the sherry cask. PX influence is usually a bad influence for me, but it plays well here. Finish: Pretty long finish for a 12 year old. Slight lean towards bitter and dry with raisins, orange peels, and cloves. I think it’s just because the nose and palate saturates your sense of sweet so much, the other flavors fight back by default. I am keeping this stocked. This bottle has been opened for over a year, and it still tastes great. I would, however, not keep the dram open to air for more than an hour. I find with time, this loses its complexity and the arrival becomes sweet to the extreme, while the finish becomes even more bitter. Fortunately, it's not hard to drink this quickly. Pros: This is THE entry sherried whisky. I cannot think of another example that is so readily available, so easily recognizable, and so delicious. This recently beat out Macallan Ed. No 1 and Tamdhu Batch Strength #1 in a blind tasting I tried. Cons: For the price, I can’t think of any. Mark: 87/100 (range 85-89.5. N = 8)

I had a sherry blind tasting with 8 different sherried whiskies. Tamdhu 10 finished last. It was not a close last. There were 7 decadent, rich sherried whiskies oozing dark fruits, dark chocolate, butterscotch, and crème brulee. And 1 beer. This was the beer. The nose is dominated by the spirit. Young malt and organic solvent. Light fruits and nutty popcorn, almonds, and sherry, but not enough sherry. A nutty, malty, citrusy arrival that only later becomes dark fruits. Orange peels, white pepper, and a light smoke towards the finish. The finish is the only redeeming part. The nose and palate expose that the Tamdhu new make is nowhere near the Macallan caliber they are trying to emulate, and this product is too young, and needs more barrel influence to smooth out its flaws. I bet the batch strength Tamdhu, which is officially NAS, is 11-12 years. I really enjoyed batch #1, and not as much batch #2. Now that I’ve tried Tamdhu 10, I am noticing some bad characteristics in the batch #1 hidden by the stronger ABV and, I think, more time in the barrel. So, not only is this bottle not worth the premium price they are charging for a 10 year old, it made another bottle (batch 1) not worth it by bringing attention to Tamdhu’s flaws. I’m definitely done playing with this distillery. Macallan from the future it is not. PRESUMPTIVE MARK: 77/100 In case you’re interested, here’s how the 8 whiskies ended up being ranked: 1. Aberlour A’bunadh B34 NAS 59.5% 2. Arran Single Cask Sherry OB D1997/B2013 Spring Release 52.8% 3. Glendronach 12 year B2016 (1L travel retail) 43% 4. Tamdhu Batch Strength #1 NAS B2015 58.8% 5. Famous Grouse 18 year 43% 6. Macallan Edition No. 1 NAS 48.1% 7. Tomatin 18 year B2017 46% 8. Tamdhu 10 year B2017 43%

A fine blend. Friendly enough for beginners, interesting enough for the more experienced, and a pretty good representation for “Speyside flavors.” And who cannot buy a bottle with a dog named Scallywag on it? Malty and fruity on the nose. A light sherry on the palate with delightful hits of spice, and a surprisingly hefty mouthfeel. Thank you Mortlach. The finish has a slightest hint of smoke and is well balanced. With time in the glass, this becomes more and more chocolaty. This does not need water. The Macallan is evident in here, and this makes me want to do my own blend with only Mac 12 and an older Mortlach. Anyways, I am impressed so far. This is the first Douglas Laing blend I’ve purchased. No regrets, and I will be trying the Rock Oyster soon. PRESUMPTIVE MARK: 84/100

I fell in love with Craigellachie last year, after trying their 13 year old, and I’ve been grabbing other expressions, official and independent, off shelves since then, and slowly opening them. Unfortunately, nothing has surpassed the 13, including this much more expensive 19 year old. Fortunately, I was able to find this at a bargain, in Trinidad and Tobago, of all places. The online price this is around 120 British pounds, but I found a lonely, dusty, single bottle of this at Piarco International Airport for 120 USD. This is a travel retail exclusive, and it makes sense they would hide this, and only offer it to travel-drunk suckers. I still like this dram, but it lacks the boldness of the 13. The nose is much softer, and features many floral notes and wintermelon; much more perfumy compared to the official 13. On the palate, this has a pleasant creamy mouthefeel with a vanilla and citrus arrival. The famous (or infamous) Craigellachie wormtub sulfur notes emerge later on, and become very strong on the finish – much more so than the 13. The finish is also astringent, metallic, and completely different from the nose. The flavors are much smoother with a few drops of water, which I will recommend. I like this dram. I don’t expect many others will. I don’t regret buying it. I expect many others will. PRESUMPTIVE MARK: 90/100

Part of a flight: Angel’s Envy Bourbon Port Finish (Batch 59I) at 43.3% ABV High West Bourye (Batch 17L21) at 46% ABV Prichard’s Double Barreled at 45% ABV The winner. This stuff just gets better with time and water. The foundation is a very well-aged 10 year old bourbon. You get that leathery tobacco, cinnamon powder, and red fruits. The ryes are even more aged – a blend 12-14 years old. That takes the young rye edge, which I don’t like, away. It adds some mint and greenness to the bourbon, and never steals the spotlight. I also get some wine notes, which emerges in the absence of wine finishing, as far as I can tell. This is very similar to High West’s bespoke Midwinter. With water, this opens up to reveal white pepper and dark chocolate in a dynamic, lovely finish that lingers for quite a while. In Maryland, this tends to be cheaper than in other parts of the country. I found this on sale for $72, and it’s a steal at that price. MARK: 93/100

Part of a flight: Angel’s Envy Bourbon Port Finish (Batch 59I) at 43.3% ABV High West Bourye (Batch 17L21) at 46% ABV Prichard’s Double Barreled at 45% ABV The clear loser. I don’t like young, nutty bourbons, and this is that. If tasted blind, there is no way I would guess this was finished in port barrels, but I guess the port smooths out the rough edges of the bourbon, because it’s not offensive, despite a varnishy, peanuty flavor, which is not my preferred flavors. The positive is a nice creamy vanilla. Knowing there is port, and really trying to find the wine notes, you do get some grape. But it’s subtle. With water, this gets a little worse. A straw note comes out. Inoffensive, but uninspired. MARK: 80/100