Compass Box Great King St Glasgow Blend

Flavorful. Sweet. A bit thin on the finish.

Absolutely stellar!

Nice blend

Good for cocktails needing a smokey scotch blend

Rating: 14/23 N: Smoke, roast pork, some sulphur, peat. Cherry and other sweet red fruit sherry notes come out, but they''re a bit restrained. Hay and earth. It's like it wants to develop some of that Springbank funk, but it can't quite. Faint hints of sea spray. A mostly good nose that has a bit too much sulphur and is a bit too muddled without having any killer note. P: Smoke, earth, spice (cinnamon, black pepper, ginger, clove), some sulphur. There's definitely some bourbon barrel flavor here with those spices leading into a wave of vanilla that turns a little bit into caramel as it progresses. Then the red sherry fruitiness comes out. As those both recede, the sulphuric earthiness comes back to the fore along with some hay and then the peat comes in. This definitely seems more smoky than peaty, but both are present for sure. A little sea spray comes out at points too. F: Smoke, peat, vanilla, spices, occasional faint fruits. A little layer of that sulphur that just won't go away. - Conclusion - There's a lot to like here, but it's rough around the edges for sure. The flavors aren't that refined and the blur together a bit. The real problem though is that there's a sulphur note that just won't quite disappear. Had some of the components here been aged for a bit longer before bottling, this could have been a much better whiskey. Lismore 21 (19/23) also initially struck me as a bit sulphuric, but I later decided that detecting that character required a very sensitive palate. Putting them side by side here, I really can't taste the sulphur in the Lismore, but I sure can taste it in this. It's still not overwhelming though. Johnnie Walker Green (17/23) also doesn't have these problems and tastes a lot more coherent and tasty (despite my bottle having been mostly drained for months now). Dalmore 15 (15/23) still seems better than this, but it's starting to get into the ballpark. Dewar's 15 The Monarch (13/23) is cleaner than this is, but it shows its alcohol more with that kind of blended emptiness. This is definitely better than Cutty Sark Prohibition though. That one lacks the character of this while being just as sulphuric. I think this is either a 13 or a 14. It's solid enough and I'd be fine drinking it if it weren't for the sulphur. It still manages to hold up, but it's not something I'd choose to stock when Loch Lomond 12 is around the same price and Johnnie Walker Green and Laphroaig 10 aren't tremendously more expensive. After much contemplation, I think that this is a 14. I find it to definitely be too muddled, but at the same time it has more definition than many unsherried unpeated blends. Considering that, I can better appreciate the complexities that it has.