One of the first high end bottles i bought for my home bar, was this limited edition from Compass Box, a very good looking bottle called "This is Not a Luxury Whisky". Of course, the name and the whole concept of the bottle comes from an artistic background, as most Compass Box do. In the late 1920s, a famous belgian painter called René Magritte painted a pipe, and underneath the pipe he wrote: "this is not a pipe". The surrealistic meaning of the artwork was clear, to say it was not a pipe, when it clearly was a painting of a pipe. The same concept is applied here, stating that this is not a Luxury whisky, will make it most definitively a luxurious one. Bottled at 53.1%abv, it has a beautiful golden color that can't be appreciated while in the bottle, because the decanter is black. On the nose, it is near perfect. Orange peels, tangerine and tobacco leaf. Burnt gray grass, white chocolate and coconut Cream. After a while breathing, it released lemon peel, meringue. There is a very unmistakable note of white Ritter chocolate with almonds. Cigarrettes. The palate is very peaty. Super unexpected. Tobacco and ashes. Salt and maritime notes. A second sip gave me a fancy, thick bodied vanilla. Oily. Orange acidity on the second sip. Sulphur; metallic. Creamy and acid. Aftertaste is wonderfully peaty as well. Salt; maritime kelp, ashes. It is actually super salty. A wet ashtray and cigarrettes. Overall this was a complete surprised. I have drank a lot of expressions from Compass Box and i expect some peatiness out of them, but this is really three steps above any other release. In a blind tasting, i would never have guessed this one as a CB for two reasons, you can't find that typical "Glen Elgin - Clynelish" profile they often use; and, it resembles more to a single malt than to a blended scotch. I actually would have made a wild guess and said that this is the rare Mackinlay Shackleton old highland malt, (the Whyte & Mackay replica made by Richard Patterson), because it has this old, grassy tobacco peat note. Outstanding whisky really, my score for it is a very well deserved 95 out of a 100.