Glen Scotia 15 Year

😍Layered salty delish

The Bottle: Restrained. There is a small black label on both the front, and back, with some decent information about what's in the bottle; along with a nice relief of the company logo and city of origin. The bottle is a touch tall for my taste, but there is neither anything stand-out nor regrettable about it. In the Glass: Bronze. On the Nose: Rich and complex. There is the "Campbeltown style" to the way this is put together, notes of sweet and salt intermingled with touches of chocolate and dried fruit. the balance on this is really quite good, there's just enough of everything so that no one component takes away from the other. Very inviting. Taste: Powerful arrival of sweet and salt that develops into pronounced notes of: dark chocolate, dates/figs and absinth of all things. That may sound like an odd flavor to be in there, but it sits so well in the mix with everything else. I believe that even Distiller puts "chocolate covered pretzels" in their review and I can honestly see why, that's exactly the backbone of the finish that this develops. Along with the green fairy sidekick, the chocolate pretzel makes for a complex and lasting flavor. I've never had another spirit that was quite like it. I'm not sure how Glen Scotia gets these flavors into their malt, but I hope that they don't change a thing. This is one of my favorite Scottish single-malts, hands-down. I used to think that the Springbank 15 was the best thing to ever come out of Cambpeltown...but I gotta say, this pipped it. At the time of this review, I have yet to try their other offerings; though the Victoriana and the 18 are both on my list. I highly recommend picking up a bottle if you are looking for a non-peated single malt and you're ready for something that isn't from Speyside

Dramfest `18...day 2....somewhere near the end....I only now realise I already had a sample of that at home :-). I can't read all my notes but I got 3.25 crossed our and then 3.5. Ah actually I can...I had this after the Ardbeg Coryvecken so 46% vs a peated 57.1%....it was probably handicapped from the start. Slightly ethanolly, then richness, then unbalanced. The correyveckan and more than 10% seemed to have more balance between alcohol and flavour. I will retry and adjust rating if I've been unfair! 3.5 it is for now. Update 5 months later. Now I have another sample to enjoy at my leisure my rating has definitely gone up a notch. Bubblegum winey toffee on the nose and palate, hint of smoke, bit of drying oak and salt very nice. Definitely a jump up to a 3.75 (4 less .25 for aftertaste). The drying slightly bitter soap suddy thinner aftertaste stops it being really great and from memory I think the Victoriana was better. (I gave that a 4.25). Still at around $55USD here in NZ very good value for $. I've been impressed by some of the Glen Scotias..bar the double cask.