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Smokehead Islay Single Malt

Single Malt

Smokehead // Islay, Scotland

  • Details
  • 487 Reviews

community rating

3.24
3.24 out of 5 stars
( Total review count: 487 )

Smokehead is shrouded in mystery. It's released by Ian Macleod Distillers, a family-owned company that owns Glengoyne, Tamdhu and offers several expressions of undisclosed origin, like this one.

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We can tell you that it's an 86-proof Islay single malt aged largely in hogshead barrels for around eight years and it aims to be the choice for the hair metal, race car-obsessed set (see the website). For everything else, your guess is as good as ours.

Smokehead is shrouded in mystery. It's released by Ian Macleod Distillers, a family-owned company that owns Glengoyne, Tamdhu and offers several expressions of undisclosed origin, like this one. We can tell you that it's an 86-proof Islay single malt aged largely in hogshead barrels for around eight years and it aims to be the choice for the hair metal, race car-obsessed set (see the website). For everything else, your guess is as good as ours.

    • age
      NAS
    • Cost
    • abv
      43.0
  • Single Malt
    Distilled in pot stills from 100% malted barley, produced at one distillery, aged in barrels; if Scotch or Irish, must be aged for at least three years.
  • About TruePrice™
    Our proprietary TruePrice™ aggregates our reviewers' pricing reports and filters outliers to provide a more accurate average price.

Tasting Notes

"Smokehead is as much a classic Islay whisky as Stagecoach is a classic western movie. The nose is a wallop of meaty peat—all burnt rubber and skid marks on tar. But those heavy aromas are all talk and no action. They collapse on themselves when you take a sip. The palate—which is disorientingly creamy-- is a flimsy clutter of saline, zingy white pepper and vanilla, which intensifies with a few drops of water. That vanilla, however, is trammeled in in the end by the pepper-heavy, seaweed-y finish. "
Added by Liza Weisstuch
Score 69
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Flavor Profile

Salty & Briny

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