Nose: Fruit (apple peel), cereal (fresh wort), unctious notes (oily barley? fortified wine?) and crisp oak barrel. There’s a wintergreen note as well. Overall it’s a fresh, lifted nose but its obviously young. Palate: Soft, creamy arrival that seethes with barley oils. It’s like a pot-still Irish whiskey taken to almost absurd levels. It quickly develops a lot of awkward spice notes (caraway, nutmeg, fennel) and a good deal of simple heat with an undertone of ethanol. The texture is heavy and oily but lacks refinement. Finish: Medium. Gristy cereal with wood and spice notes. I just received three Whipper Snapper samples and decided to examine this single malt first, as in his recent review of the same three whiskies @DrRHCMadden rated this lowest. This malt shows facets that are more typical of a rye whisky, in fact if I had tasted this blind its braying chorus of bready spices and minty wintergreen would have led me to think it was a barley-heavy rye rather than a single malt. The nose is warming and seductive and although there is obvious evidence of youth its crisp freshness makes it work. However the palate was where it really let me down. It's here that its juvenile character is on full display, and it’s a display of brash flavours that have not even started to meld into anything approaching maturity. This is apparently four years old and if that’s so it needs several more years in a refill bourbon cask in a very stable environment to calm it down. Right now it’s a squalling infant, and honestly I could not finish the tasting sample. It’s also wildly overpriced. Comparing this to any Scottish single malt in the same price bracket would be an exercise in embarrassment. Tasted from a 30ml sample. “Adequate” : 73/100 (2.25 stars)