Naked Malt

N: Peach, pear, sour fruit. Red apple, caramel, toffee, vanilla. Light chocolate and coffee. Pretty standard so far. Then we turn to an herbal note, almost basil, but less pungent. Maybe some fresh cut carrots and bell pepper too. Maybe some dried thyme, or something in that range. All of the herbal/vegetal notes are quite soft and fit nicely under the fruit. An interesting and actually quite pleasant nose. P: Sweet caramel and vanilla up front. Rounded red and orchard fruit in the middle. Late middle squeezes in just a dash of herb and bell pepper note from the nose, but the finish burns that away in short order. Finish is quite nice and hot - mostly cinnamon, but it borders on capsaicin (without the vegetable note of a pepper, despite what's come before). There is also some noticeable wood tannin and ensuing bitterness in the finish. This is a solid, well-built, well-rounded blended (all malt) Scotch. It's pretty straightforward with maybe one surprise in the intensity of the heat in the finish.* The dram's fault, really, is that it lacks some depth and layering. But that's probably expected for the price range. I would pick this up again. * It feels like more of a raw American oak finish than a virgin Oloroso Sherry finish, but then maybe/probably I've never had a whisky finished in virgin Oloroso before and the sherry doesn't suck out much heat where the whisky does - IDK.