Tastes

On the nose floral citrus apple vanilla. The palate features the same flavors in reverse order, the vanilla hitting first, followed by fruit, then a floral woodiness. Some baking spices, light wood tannin and sweet vanilla linger on the finish. It tastes like the regular low ABV Glenlivet with the volume turned up a bit. I enjoy it and wish I could keep this regularly stocked, but it would appear this was a limited release and no longer to be found, locally at least.

This is a NDP whose products I mostly ignore. Seems like they built a reputation based on early releases which contained very good well-aged bourbon, but have since released mostly overpriced young bourbon. I have seen these recently marked down to $60-70 locally, but apparently it hasn't moved well even at that price. I took a flyer on it when it was marked down to $30. I'll say, I think $30 is a fair price for this. It comes across like a slightly higher aged version of Willett Pot Still. I don't know if the barrels come from Willett, or if it's a blend of multiple Kentucky bourbon distilleries. But the prominent notes are floral, cinnamon, citrus, and light caramel. It's said to be a blend of 4-11 year old barrels, but I'd guess it's mostly in the younger range. I'd be disgusted to have paid the $135-150 that this was sold at when released, but again, I think $30 seems fair for the quality, so I'm not disappointed to have this in the cabinet for mixing.

Ardnamurchan makes delicious whisky and this one is no exception. Boght this on special for 30 Pounds plus shipping to the states, so total to me was around $60. This is a blend of mostly 8-ish year old bourbon barrels with one 7-year old sherry cask, and 5 each of 6-year old Madeira and Sauternes casks. It appears to have been a UK only release that was a collaboration with an insect-repellant company called Smidge. Thankfully though, I don't think any of the repellant made it into the bottle. The dominant notes for me are orange marmalade, salted caramel, rich milk chocolate, ginger, and maybe a slightly milder peat than you'd typically find in a Talisker. It seems a little sweeter than their regular releases, and the slightly higher ABV is nice. The fruity toffee smoke combo is delicious. I recommend any Ardnamurchan, but this might be my favorite so far of the ones I've tried.

The Amburana finish is pretty strong on this one, lots of honey and spice, cinnamon. The rye seems to be well in the background. I thought this was decently good, but think the finish should be dialed back a bit.

Had a small taste of this local store pick from a friend's bottle. I believe was bottled at 106 or 108 proof. The port finish is perfect on this one. Not overdone at all, but gives the bourbon a nice background of jammy fruit. I don't care much for the regular bottling or even this brand at all, but this bottle was really tasty.

Noses raisin, dried strawberry, toffee, walnut, Nutella, pizza crust. The palate is like a dried fruit heavy trail mix, with fruit, nuts, M&Ms, salt. It’s not too hot neat, but I think opens up nicely with a little water. I like this, but I’m not sure that it’s any better than a Batch Strength Tamdhu. The salty note maybe makes it stand out as slightly different. If it’s available in the 85-95 range in your area I’d say give it a whirl, but I wouldn’t pay any more than you can get the Tamdhu. I overpayed a bit for this one because it’s not distributed to my state.

Nose at first is green apple and vanilla. As it sits in the glass a little oak emerges. Baked goods, pastry, maybe a green apple pie. A little cinnamon and mint. Palate is more citrus along with sweet tea and mint. Slight herbal note, but not quite dill. A nice oakyness comes toward the finish. I imagined I would like this more than the 8 year bourbon because I generally favor ryes to bourbons, and because I like New Riff’s ryes more than their bourbons. Indeed, I do like this better, but not by as much as I imagined, which is more I think a testament to how good the bourbon is, not that the rye is disappointing in any way. Both given 4 stars, but the rye slightly edges out the bourbon for me, but maybe mostly because I'm more a rye-guy.

Reminds me of a light Highland Park. A little bit of orange peel, slight peat, caramel. There's a mustiness that borders on wet cardboard, but mostly stays just short of that. The flavors are light as expected for 40%, but it seems fairly priced at thirty-something dollars.

Very rummy nose with the peat taking more of a back seat. The palate is sweeter up front than other Lags. Peat has a lighter presence overall, but shows up nicely on the back and going into the finish. I've only had the first two, haven't yet tried the last one. First impression is I'd rank the Guinness ahead of this one. But it's enjoyable. The rum gives it a more summery vibe. It's good. Reminds me a lot of the Talisker special edition rum finish. Wouldn't be surprised if they used casks from the same rum distillery.

Admittedly, this never had a chance to score well with me, bottled at 40%. On the plus side, there’s no bite. Unfortunately, there’s also not much flavor. Burb Lite, I guess.