Invergordon 9 Year Old (Battlehill)

Buttery light and slightly floral. I like it, not sure what others complaining about. It a nice summer whiskey.

Possibly the worst of 200 whiskeys I've tasted. Burn tires and peppercorn with a horribly funky taste all the way through, start to finish. Seems like the grain in this single grain definitely isn't barley.

Stop number 37 on the SDT is Invergordon. Like the Girvan that I recently reviewed, this distillery only produces single grain whisky. I really don't have much info on this Highland distillery, but I'm relatively sure it's main purpose is to be used in blends as you can't really find official distillery bottlings. This 9 year old bottle comes from the independent bottlers from Battlehill. Bottled at a beefy 58% ABV, non chill filtered and natural color of a pale straw. There is an initial blast of alcohol on the nose, as is to be expected at this strength. It's very waxy, candle wax or paraffin wax. A fair amount of vanilla and grain (comes off as wheat but it could be another type of grain). Green oak and sawdust. Some honey and another hit of oak, but charred oak this time. At this point it took a turn for the worse and a very sour note emerged. Like sourdough bread. I decided to add a generous amount of water to see what would happen. More grain, oak and honey came out, but so did more of that sour note. Really off putting. The palate arrives hot with sharp oak. Underripe stone fruits like apricots and nectarines and some bitter grapes or bad grapenuts cereal. Some bitter chocolate and perhaps burnt coffee beans. The water brought out that sourdough bread in the palate as well. A weird soap like note came through as well. Not pleasant and it actually made me a little nauseous. The mouthfeel is hot, oily and mouthwatering. Actually a rather pleasant mouthfeel. A medium long finish that is sour with green oak I think I've gotten my point across that this stuff was not very good, at least not for my nose and tongue. Really unpleasant sour notes. Actually it reminded me of Craigellachie with how sour it was (I know most people rave about Craigellachie but I didn't care for it). I ended up dumping about half of the sample that Lee provided me with (sorry Lee). It was just not sitting well with me, and still isn't 30 minutes later. I can't see a time when I would buy or recommend this bottle. The initial nose and mouthfeel are the only redeeming qualities that I found. I'm giving it 2 stars and I thinks that's generous. Cheers

To kick off our third round of Scottish distillery samples in a more exciting way, I decided to try the official Invergordon sample. The 9 year old, independent bottling from Battlehill that comes in at a cask strength of 58%. It's a very pale yellow and smells of candle wax and cereal box marshmallows. There's hints of vanilla, figs and nutmeg. Even at 58% there's no evidence of ABV at all. The youthful, lightly charred oak provides an interesting backbone here, too. On the tongue, there's an initial blast of oak and pepper spice that's short lived and fades into a freshly opened box of Lucky Charms cereal, with the marshmallows! The vanilla and honey sweetness helps temper the burn as it fades into a sweet wheat and malty finish. It's more oily than I expected but rather short. I really expected a lengthy and hot finish because of the ABV, but I guess that's the joy of grain whisky. It's pretty smooth overall. It's really non-offensive, but with little to no depth, which is why it's mainly used for blending I suppose, but it's still surprisingly enjoyable. Liquified, Saturday morning cereal- with a kick. 3.75 stars. I like this more than I probably should, haha.