Tastes

Another Whistlepig another satisfying experience. Not a fan of the strong peppermint flavour but really nice balance and all round delivery. Strip out the peppermint and you'd have a really top notch rye for me. All spice and cardamom were noted by others and yes they are the next most predominant flavours for me. As much as I dislike the peppermint (not as prominent in their Canadian version from memory), great quality. 4.25 for quality and 3.5 for flavour preference. 3.75 it is!

Another Irish another success. Teeling maybe pretty average to poor distillers but they definitely knew how to pick good casks from others. This one has apparently spent the whole time in rum. Honeyed grapefruit is the main flavor combo. I like it but I think the JJ Corry 16 year Flintlock beats it out.

This is definitely an interesting dram. Banana, coconut, vanilla, lemon and more jumping out in this one, rounded out by light spiciness. Quite nicely done. I can see why they won awards. It's released by the Chapel Gate Whiskey Co. Not to sure where they sourced this stuff from but they picked the casks well. Only 400 bottles released i believe. @1901 I see you added the entry so i'm guessing you have a bottle or sample of this lying around?

I remember years ago when I was starting my spirit drinking journey with rum and there was one true abomination..pyrat xo rum which had orange flavor added..man that was disgusting. After that other than an actual orange in whole or juice form nothing orange has crossed my lips. Now i didn't realise what curacao was until I took a sniff of this one and thought hmm smells like mint and something else, took a sip and then spat it out as heavily ethanoled orangeness assaulted my palate. After a heavy dosing of water...argh no it really isn't doing it for me. If you like high abv base ethanol mixed with peppermint and orange liqueur you'll love this. Eventually swirling around the mouth wasn't too bad even enjoyable to a degree but then having to swallow and that aftertaste... i'm with @dubz480 on this one a very charitable 3.

Not a bad dram. Not a lot going on though. Solid

Not really much going on here. Tastes like std refill bourbon with spicey kick. Not that impressive.

The highest i've ever rated a Dalmore was a 4 which was a large step up from 2nd at 3.5.... the rest even lower. This one initially I was impressed but the longer I drank it the predominant notes were as Jose mentioned old citric, drying white peppered bitter wood. The aftertaste it left in my mouth not really pleasant. I'm thinking 3.5 max for this one as well in fact by the end i thought even less and tipped the rest. And that ladies and gentlemen is the last of my Dalmore samples I have in my collection. I've tried several and nearly all i've found wanting bar the cigar malt. Not a distillery I will pay money for too try again...ever..

I managed to procure a TWE sample of this. To be fair I tried this after two 60%+ bourbons Kentucky Owl and Brookers which were both excellent so I was wondering how this would hold up after those two and the answer is not to bad! Not worth the price or anything but nice blend of malts, well balanced. Get creamy smoke, sweet vanilla predominantly.

The back story to this brand is as follows. Charles Mortimer Dedman created Kentucky Owl Sour Mash Bourbon Whiskey in 1879 and saw it do well until 1916’s pre-Prohibition days. He, like many of his peers, was ordered to cease production and ship his barreled liquid to government warehouses. To add misery to that madness, those warehouses mysteriously burned, Dedman never received payment for the lost whiskey, and he never returned to distilling. Long story short 98 years later his great great grandson resurrected the label got sourced stock and hey presto. I took my first sip straight as I do with drams, get the essence and then often spit it out and wait till my tounge has acclimatized. This even at 60% plus needed none of that. Very well balanced between ethanol and flavor. I put a liberal dose of water in and it really opened up. Now as I harp on about, Dr pepper cough syrup and menthol are not flavors I enjoy and this is what the dram is about....and I still like it! That is brilliant execution when you can take flavour profiles someone doesn't like and make a dram that they do. Hats off! I looked up the price as was like woah no wonder the sample was not cheap. Even more impressively this is batch 8. Usually with sourced whiskey you get a cracker first few batches or runs and then over a short or long time they get watered the shite down quality wise. Not this one. Apparently they don't have a fixed flavour profile they blend to they just get good stock and create the profile around that. Definately helps keep quality up. Now the longer I drink the more my aversion to the flavour overcomes the excellent effort of blending so started 4.25 by the end 3.75 to 4. Still if you see it in a bar definitely try it