Picked up a four pack of 50 ml Glenlivet samplers for AUD$30. Bargain. No expectations of grandeur but about time I knocked off a couple of common place bottom to 1st shelf bar offerings… N: Toast, sparsely buttered toast. I find some honey, a little yeasty malt and acidic pear for some sweetness. The toasty tones though are dominant and have muted pretty much everything else I try to find. I think the nose is very much too light in character to have such a dominant single note. That said, its a good single note. Does anyone not like the smell of buttered toast? P: Fairly thin with a little oiliness that holds to the palate just slightly. Buttery malt forward with a little sweetness from generic orchard fruit. Quickly turns to peppery oak with a background of bitterness. The flavours here lean towards a drying sweetness. Clean and well defined, but shallow and simple. Maybe it’s me that finds little, or maybe little is offered. I’m inclined to think it’s the latter. F: Medium. Drying and pepper rich with a little twang of barley sugar sweetness. There is something hiding in the back too, I don’t know what it is it’s an odd sour fruit with a creamy feel to it, is it an apple flavour? Odd. Overall there is nothing particularly bad here. But nothing really good either. It feels barely more than one dimensional and is overshadowed by just about everything in its class (maybe not Loch Lomond 12, damn that stuffs bad). Whilst this 12 year old version offers well delivered malt flavours and some general sweetness, that are perfectly acceptable; I find the whole offering less interesting and only as well delivered as the Founders Reserve which apparently has replaced this in some markets. Distiller whisky taste #113