Tastes

This one is a bit of a puzzle to me. For Octomore, the smoke and peat is not really as strong and hit you in the face as I expected. If anything, the wine finish is more apparent than the insane peating. The color is deeper and the sherry and wine finish can definitely be seen. On the nose, I get damp stones, moss by the seashore, really crisp malted barley. I also get a whiff of mint and maybe some hot mustard or horseradish. Tasting it, I get some sea salt, some definite heat like white and black peppercorns. I get more mint and some sweet herbs like tarragon. The peat is really a lot more mellowed and subdued than I'd like from Octomore - I definitely get some dry smokey notes and vegetal funkiness, but it's not nearly as raw as it's been in other bottles of Octomore that I've had. I get semi-sweet sherry funk from the aging - oxidized nutty flavors and an edge from the wine casks. It's not bad by any means, but I was hoping for more raw peat. The sweet herbal flavors are a question I can't quite seem to answer. The finish is long - it seems to be all over the place - salty, smoked fish, smoked wood, sherry nuttiness. There is some dry rolling smoke, but I've definitely had much smokier whiskey. Also get some of the malted barley and some raisins and medicinal flavors. At first glance, it's not my favorite Octomore, not raw peat, hang on for dear life, but it's shaping up to be something pretty nice. I will need to revisit it as the bottle ages and opens up a bit, as I just popped it open and this was my first pour.

Has a very fruity taste, kind of peachy. Grain forward with a lot of malt - chewy barley notes. A hint of smoke. Nice coastal, briney, salty, ocean flavors. But the finish, the finish is where this whiskey really loses me. It has a dry, funky, citrusy sherry kind of finish - something like a strong fino. It really dominates and I just flat out dislike it. I've had whiskey with these kind of flavors where it worked very, very well. In my opinion, it doesn't work here - it just clashes with what the rest of the whiskey is doing - it's not a counterpoint, it's more an obstruction. It leaves me feeling like I'm puckering my mouth, wishing the overly tart, dry flavor would just go away, and that the sweet fruity/malty flavors would come back. Unfortunately, that excessively tart, dry sherry sticks around. I could see how someone COULD like this, but I don't. If you like Oban and dryer sherry, this might be for you. I prefer my sherry and sherry finishes sweet. This is much too dry for me. I don't think PX would necessarily work, but I think I'd like this more if they'd turn up the sweetness a notch or two. Not a bad whiskey, but a hard pass for me. There aren't many single malts I actually dislike, but this makes the list. I can appreciate this on a technical level, but I don't actually enjoy it. I feel like I need to go to Islay and lick some freshly smoked peat to get this taste out 😝.

Hot and spicey with strong burn. A lot of sweet corn elements, vanilla, leather, and candy corn. A bit of charred barrel and some underlying smokiness. A hint of maple? Black pepper. Some spicy flavors from the rye. The finish is long but it mellows quickly, as the initial fire subsides. All in all, I prefer Knob Creek to Baker's, but I'd never turn this down. It would also be a great base for a high end cocktail, as it has enough punch and character to stand out even when paired with some good vermouth or something of the sort.

This one is kind of a miss for me. The smoke is there, and I think the peaty smokiness is the best part. It has nice malt flavors, but the rum cask aging really throws my palate off - it gives sort of a funky, sweet, pineapple, tropical fruit, citrussy, overly sweet body that wrestles with the smoke in a way that just turns me off. I feel like the rum character could be a nice addition to this malt, but it's too much the main flavor from my point of view than a supporting character. It also has an oxidized funkiness similar to what you might get in sherry finish, but I don't enjoy this heavily rummed scotch it the way I enjoy a heavily sherried scotch. It's not terrible, but I don't particularly enjoy it. I could see someone else liking it. If I could get this corr whisky in a bourbon or sherry aging without the rum, I anticipate that it might really do it for me. If you haven had it, try it and make up your own mind, but as for me... I have no plans to replace this bottle once it's gone.

Got some heat and spice from the rye, but really toned down by the malt, which gives it more of a malty, biscuit/cracker, damp earth flavor. Banana and cinnamon toast on the finish, maybe a bit of damp straw. Pretty drinkable mid-priced whiskey. Good, not great, but it's a respectable weekday, any old occasion kind of drink.