Nose is orange pith, sea brine, honeycomb and crunchberry cereal. Oddly sweet, yet slightly dry. Palate starts creamy and quickly turns prickly, revealing the 54.2% ABV up front. Once the heat is announced, there’s an odd mix of ginger, mace, anisette and grapefruit which moves to a lemonhead candy, and it all somehow works despite the apparent mismatch. Middle is dry, bitter oak, which removes any hint of lingering citric sweetness and moves quickly to a prickly juniper finish. This is very unique for me in that it doesn’t fit a style. There’s no obvious regional influence, no standard against which to compare. It’s a mishmash of a bunch of things and strikes me more like a well-crafted US Rye than anything Scotch. Let’s see what it’s like with more time and oxidation.