Nose: Stewed apples, juice from crushed apples that is starting to go brown, butterscotch, brown sugar, vanilla, banana and caramel. It’s a rich nose right from first sniff but it does not evolve over time in the glass. Palate: The arrival is momentarily sweet but rapidly develops a lot of heat with some hard, gritty cereal and cask flavours. It is drying, and a bitter grapefruit note emerges in the later palate, which I would say is due to tannin from indifferent sherry casks. The texture is good with a pleasant oiliness, but it is obscured by the edgy flavours. Finish: Medium. Fruity, but overpowered by bitter tannin. Apples are prominent throughout this profile. The nose has a full and buttery quality with a suggestion of mango, and it outperforms the palate which is hot, hard and bordering on harsh (at least when neat). A dash of water subdues the palate and presents ginger and chilli rather than straightforward tannic heat, but it does not rise to any sort of greatness and, like the nose, it does not evolve over time. If the neat palate was as good as the nose I’d rate this more highly, but as it stands it’s just average, which is a disappointment. I’ve tasted Tomatin that is much better than this. Tasted from a 50ml distillery miniature. “Average” : 77/100 (2.5 stars)