anCnoc 12 Year

Creamy notes of Buttery caramel, vanilla and sweetness

Tasting neat: Nose of Bavarian cream and lemon. Palate is full of peaches and cream, crepe brûlée, and citrus. Finishes quick and soft, with more citrus notes and a hint of cereal.

Strong nose of butterscotch but it doesn’t carry through to the palate. Not bad but a little too harsh and raw for me.

Light and flowery on the nose with a hint of clove. Smooth and soft entry with immediate sweet honey and vanilla with a kick of spices from clove cinnamon and anise. A mild reminder of vanilla mixed in and a short finish. Doesn’t linger much on the palette and very approachable. Worth a try especially if you like speyside and sweeter milder highlands

There is something to this whisky that speaks to me and I don’t know exactly what it is. Maybe the name, maybe the design, maybe the modest inconspicuousness, maybe the fact that no one seems to talk about it. Anyway, I tasted the 24y some months ago and found it very unimpressive. I thought afterwards that I maybe just had a bad day, my palate was off or the sample I had just was weird. So I got this comparably very cheap 12y-bottle to give it another try - because it still was on my mind for some reason. Nose: fruity and fresh, a good balance of sour & sweet, the obligatory apples and oranges with honey and vanilla just as you know it from teen-highland whiskies. It is mild but charming. A bid like toast dipped in white wine. Well balanced but not very complex - an easy, polite and compatible whisky. Palate: sweet almost fruit-juice in the beginning, then a good bunch of mead. Finish: some oriental spices, not sweet anymore, the the wood influences get more intense with every sip. So do spices including hot peppers. After the first few sips the nose gets better - feels enriched with some added fresh green herbs. But still very mild and uncomplicated. And even less sweet. The palate gets a bid more woody bitter but not in a negative way at all. All in all I kinda like it. It is nothing impressive. But the tasting notes are mature and I like that it doesn’t go into the sweet spectrum extensively. For a whisky that young, with that low ABV and at that low price it is a fine dram, that fits an evening outside after a physical activity of your choice with a nice fresh green leaf-salad with garlic bread.

Very fruity with hints of apple, pear and a whiff of smoke. There's also a faint taste of raisin.