Rating: 15/23 N: Sort of dusty tannins. I'm getting kind of a Dickel vitamin note here. very odd. Faint hints of ancho chili mixed into the background. There's some notion of fruit that is faintly tropical, but there really isn't much. This is a surprisingly empty nose. And I'm trying it side by side with Monkey Shoulder and Kavalan Concertmaster, so I know for sure that this is abnormal. I might even get a slight hint of meat in here. Really, it's at best a boring nose. P: Less fruity than most Kavalan products, with more alcohol showing through. I actually get a substantial amount of ethanol here and there's some burn along with it. Sure, there are some tropical fruits with little floral notes to them and there's also a bit of moderately nutty malt sweetness, but there's this surprising gap in the middle that's just full of alcohol. At 46%, I expect the flavors to be full and the alcohol to not be particularly present. This is failing on both fronts. There are some tannins leading into barrel spices, but the barrel spices turn into alcohol burn, so they're not that great. F: Tannins with fruit, mild malty sweetness, and alcohol burn. E: This is actually light by Kavalan standards, reinforcing my impression that it's underaged. - Conclusion - I don't taste the alcohol in this quite as much as I do in Monkey Shoulder (14/23), but the profile here is also less mellow and easy to sip. The higher proof really highlights the alcohol here. I do like that this is bolder in fullness than the Monkey Shoulder, but this clearly tastes young and light with obtrusive alcohol. That said, there is probably more alcohol flavor in the Monkey Shoulder. delivered as they are now. I would put this above the Monkey Shoulder. This tastes like it's trying to go the same direction as Kavalan Distillery Select (Batch 1) (16/23) with a bit of a bolder profile than something like the subdued Kavalan Concertmaster (16/23), but here the proof is cranked up to 46%, yet the Distillery Select has much bolder flavors at 43%. Side by side, the alcohol and lack of flavor in this really stand out. The gap between the two is quite large. Kavalan Concertmaster similarly is better than this by a clear margin. And to think that I was just feeling disappointed in my Concertmaster bottle - I'm sure glad I didn't buy a bottle of this. OK, time for Knappogue Castle 12 (15/23). The two are honestly pretty close in quality. Both do show off a bit more alcohol than I'd like, but they have some nice flavors to them. I think they're about on par. Considering the title "Podium", this is ironically the worst Kavalan I have yet to try, by a substantial margin. It's certainly not awful: there are nice fruit flavors here (and the higher proof does help them stand out). There's also a little bit of rich malt. I'm going with a 15. To be honest, between this and my latest Concertmaster experience, my opinion of Kavalan is dropping. I found their Soloist Port Cask and Distillery Select to be fairly priced, but that's the best I've found from them. Now, I'm finding some severely overpriced offerings and they're even starting to fall out of the high end quality range.