Auchentoshan 18 Year

Heather honey, gentle campfire smoke, sugar cookies, ripe peaches, overall a very charming aroma. Juicy orchard fruits on the palate, Lapsang tea with honey, dark chimney smoke finish. Spans the spectrum of sweet to savory very well. I gotta start drinking more Lowland malts.

Fairly generic, save for a kind yeasty, dough-y note that almost (almost) evokes a pot still Irish whiskey. Amber colour (not egregiously coloured); nose of dough, bananas, lemon, cake batter, vanilla (lemon cake?). Cedar, fresh wood. Fresh cut apples (apple skins!), some spice (cinnamon, ginger). Herbal tea and grass. Soft taste, mildly flavoured--well-tamed heat, there's more leafy, herbal greens, a touch of mint, lemon, vanilla, fresh wood. Something a touch tart. Sour apple skins. A bit of smoke (is Auchentoshan even peated?)! Cough drops. As it sits, it does actually develop a bit more character, and there's some white pepper on the finish, leading to some back-of-throat heat and lingering sour apple/lemon/dry wood. It's good, it's well-made--but the Auchentoshan profile has never done much for me, and this guy's no exception. Pleasant glass, but no reason to buy a bottle.

Noticeable char, although I prefer the three wood. Seems too one dimensional for such an old Scotch.