Tastes

Ah I found my favorite whisky bar ever. On the downside its not in my home town. On the upside I'm flying down here each week for work the next several months and it's beside the hotel where I'm staying. I've found my new home away from home! Anyway onto the bourban. This is good. Very good. Much better than most I've tried and it's only their B label. I could drink a lot of this if not for the $800USD price tag. I'll have to try their top shelf stuff sometime when I take out another mortgage :-). I'd say 4.4.

Scott_E is on the money with this one. Tropical, light and sweet. This was a newly opened bottle and had the unfortunate timing of being tried with a 97 glenthroes and Van winkle 12 so sadly very much 3rd place. Solid 3.

Not a bad drop. Sherry, date, pepper, oak, fruit cake all come together. 3.75 I'd rate this. It has an underlying bitter note and as per most Benriach's I have a feeling that it won't hold up well to oxidization. It really comes into its own when value for money comes into the equation. $80USD for a 17 year old these days is very reasonable but I still won't buy a bottle.

38 years in a barrel (bottled 2016) and 39 years on earth for me. Yes this is my birth year whiskey - 1977. The first event on the cards to celebrate my impending 40th next month was to crack this and a number of other good bottles for sharing with a group of mates who love whiskey in a friday night session. And then separate catchups for those who couldn't make it later. So I've tried this at least 4 times over the last two weeks. The bottle does the label justice - cedar wood, hint of raspberry and of course port. Finally a top notch port whisky. I'm not usually a fan but this one is excellent. Now I get a hint of the Benriach new make coming through which I'm not a huge fan of sometimes but the casks take the centre stage and deliver well. Definitely a 4.5. I'd buy it again for sure at ~ $120 - $150 USD mark but this at around $400USD was well north of that. Really this should be a 4 on that basis but hell I'll let sentiment carry the day and round up. It'll be another decade before I try a bottle of whiskey of this age, price and quality :-)

I was lucky to get this bottle as a birthday present from my whiskey mates (well a voucher for whiskey which I spent on this). I've had it open for a week now tasting here and there. So far I'm with Dreaming of Islay and Telex on this one. I like it. It's a mellower more refined version of the 10. But is it better than the 10 given the price or even at all. At this stage the answer is no and no for me. I have a feeling with more time open it'll improve further. I tried this after the Bowmore 18 which after a number of months open was beautiful probably at its peak so I have a feeling the scenario will play out similar for the Talisker 18. Update. After trying other drams including Craigellachie 13 and Glengas Torfa I think this drams new make is just more harsher / astringent / bitter. I think I'll actually drop this to barely a 4. I just confirmed this by trying the 10....it rules hands down for me. Much richer without the astringency...not sure whether the richness masks it or not or I got lower quality new make in the batch of the 18. And update 2. Many months later it's got better still and the bitterness has faded. Lovely mild pepper honey viscosity.

Being offered this as a segway taste half way through my Laphroaig Select Oak meant I probably couldn't do it justice when it comes to discerning the components of this one, but regardless here is my 2 cents worth. For me it's really a shadow of its 18 year brother with it's rich smokey bacony profile. Hints are there but not a dram I'd order for myself. 3 stars it is.

Lovely Laphroaig nose. Starts off with the familiar Laphroaig peat flavour. Not as viscous or rich as your typical Laphroaig but has a lovely sweet peatedness which balances perfectly. Lore would smoke this one for richness and not a long aftertaste, but still I prefer it to Four Oaks perhaps because of the setting - a small Spanish bar with friends. In of itself its a 3.5 at most but it's very cheap. $45 USD, which is less than the 10 year. And so for that reason it is rounded to a 4 star.

Cascode summed up this one relatively well. Younger, thinner sherried profile. Water seemed to wash it out rather than enhance the flavor for me. I didn't expend the time and effort that cascode did to try and tease out underlying elements by leaving it awhile but I suspect wouldn't have made much of a difference to my assessment. Didn't even bother to finish the dram in the end not because it was bad I just lost interest half way through. Solid 3

Maybe it was because it was my first whisky out for the night after a long work day or low expectations but either way I enjoyed this dram. Usual spreyside light profile, nondescript but enjoyable. Still not climbing to the heights of a 4 but 3.5 I'd say