Tastes

Honeyed pear, maple, sultana and other rich dried fruit on the nose. The sherry comes through on the palate, mingling with the pear. Some baking spices linger on the finish.

Sherry and cherry, caramel and apple on the nose. Honeyed pear, sweet malt, and a constant hint of smoke throughout. A little bit of cherry cola on the finish. Superb mildly peated whisky, one of my favorites that scratches all of my iches. This could possibly be biased, from the surprise opportunity to taste this well-rounded malt in the midst of all the crappy booze sampled over the holidays.

Lemon and orange peel on the nose, with a hint of vanilla if you explore enough. Bitter orange on the arrival, opening into a great salty wave with honey and lemon, but only as flotsam and jetsam lost in the wake. The wave crests and releases a salvo of tiny salt crystals across the tongue. There is a slight tingle and drying sensation as the bitterness returns for an encore, intertwining with the salinity in a moonlit dance across the deck of a fishing boat returning home for supper.

French toast and tobacco smoke on the nose, brunch in a cigar lounge. Earthy Islay peat hits you, then manuka honey with pepper and lemon oil, followed by tobacco and mint leaves. Don't get me wrong, this is very sweet for what you may be expecting; a little too sweet in my opinion. With a smack, hay abruptly emerges, as the vegetal peat suddenly gets dirtier, before decomposing into ash. This is what Highland Park would probably taste like, if made on Islay (and not as good at making whisky).

Sweet tobacco smoke on the nose. Green apple, hay, sweet corn, and more tobacco on the palate. The sweetness carries all the way through to the finish, with a tiny bitter ting that wafts out over the tongue at the end.

Subtle vanilla nose. Not much there. Creamy vanilla, faint honey and bitter grain, citrus peel, with another slightly bitter beer note. Thin-bodied but very smooth. Quick and watery finish, with a lingering bitterness and a grassy hay note.

Apple, then peat, but far too much for the simple fruit character that it has going on. The maltiness is supported by what tastes like grain that has turned. There is a strange bitter note in the midpalate, that never goes away. The flavors are all over the place, disjointed, and none are particularly well-done. The growing bitterness overshadows anything else in the finish, except for a bit of smoke. Given the age, this can't all be from the wood. It actually manages to make Disaronno taste bad, so it has to get one star for that at least...

Strong vanilla and grassy pear on the nose. A very smooth and measured entry, that gives rise to a metallic fruit note, but then a pop of vanilla which fades into a spicy herbaceousness. The finish is bitter hay. Magically delicious when chasing a bitter beer though, because it highlights the extra vanilla in there to dessert-like levels. One of the better cheaper whiskies to use for that IMO.

Grape and other dried fruits on the nose. Creamy baked apple and warm baking spices on the palate, with dry sherried nuttiness, and some corn. Unlike Red Bush, any bitterness this has is muted, partially hidden within a chrysalis of sherry, resulting in a remarkably consistent flavor profile from start to finish. Not-too-sweet, and drying on the finish, with a little bit of milk chocolate in the later stages.

When the bottle is first opened, the nose is campfire and fusil, but becomes more medicinal once oxidized in the bottle. On the palate: smoky lemon, pear and lime, tangy, sweet and savory, mouth-watering burnt rubber with cheese and slight licorice. The savory note carries through to the finish, where the smoke becomes ash and creates pulsating waves of salinity, finally giving way to spicy black pepper on the tip of the tongue; a crescendo of new flavors while the original fruit continues to play on in the background. After the finish, if such a thing has any meaning, the mind is fooled into witnessing a spectre of menthol kiss the back of the tongue after the orgy subsides. Just when you begin to wonder if this particular note was only an illusion, a faint coolness suddenly manifests itself in your breath, like balm on a smoldering inferno, forcing you question what even is real anymore.