Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house.... were samples of M&H whisky. This year, newcomers M&H made quite the ruckus taking out the worlds best whisky award (WWA) for the elements Sherry Cask. An odd origin, Israel and an interesting mission blueprint. For anyone looking for some insight into this new maker I highly recommend checking out the entry for this dram on malt-review.com, there is an excellent break down of the background to this new distillery and its story. Far more detail there than I care to get into here. The important cliff notes for M&H though: (1) the name references Israel, biblically described as “a land flowing with milk and honey” to indicate the fertility of the land, (2) Israels climate causes locally grown barley to have undesirable fibers and low starch content not suitable for making whisky, (3) so despite point 1, point 2 means that M&H import barely from the UK. To kick off tonights six dram run is M&Hs first release. The ‘Classic’ a three year old, single malt, blended from single malts matured in ex-Bourbon (75%), STR casks (20%), and virgin oak casks (5%). Unchill-filtered, with natural colour, and bottled at 46% ABV. N: Rich and quite sweet with a little alcohol burn. There is an abundance of woody honey, waxy stone fruits, and a floral malt. A little coconut is there if you search for it and a saltiness that brings with it a hint of rubberiness. Interesting enough, but perhaps a little confused by some competing ends of the olfactory spectrum? P: Warm, and surprisingly heavy on the palate with a slight waxiness. Banana, coconut, and candied ginger are most apparent to me. Before heading into a vanilla and honey malt with oats and dark chocolate. Cinnamon and a little pepper add spice to follow the gingery zing. A most wonderfully floral oaky orange is a standout. F: Medium. Peppery and lightly floral. Oakyness again, maybe with some barrel char and honey-toffee tones? This is off to a good start. Whilst the nose remains a little confused to me, the palate is the stand out driving a floral element that I find compelling and want more of. I don’t know about milk and honey, but certainly honey and blossoms is a tag line I can get behind. Is this uniquely Israeli? I don’t know. Would I, on blind tasting, believe this to be a lowland Scotch? Probably; its lightly sweet, malty, and with florals. Time will tell as we move through these offerings from the house of milk and honey, if this is unique spirit or a unique location with a Scotch imitation. Distiller whisky taste #242 [Pictured here with a vaguely geographically relevant rock. This is a piece of limestone from the Great Pyramid of Giza. The main structural stones of the pyramids are carved from quarries along the Nile valley and represent the Mokkatam Formation. In the Eocene (~50 million years old) a retreating seaway left an embankment that became the north-northwest part of the Giza Plateau. As the sea receded, a shallow lagoon formed above a shoal and coral reef. Carbonate muds, silts, and sands lithified into the layers from which the pyramid builders quarried limestone blocks and from which they carved the Sphinx]. M&H Running scores Classic: 3.5/5