So, it happens that this bottle was chosen to be opened in celebration of my birthday two weeks ago. My buddy Paul suggested I let fate decide after we both assembled a short list of 8 fantastic bottles to choose from for my celebration. In the spirit of March Madness, I did a bracket style competition using coin flips to arrive at the Dalmore 18. This highland malt was bottled at 43% and in the traditional style of Dalmore- is chill filtered and has added color to make it a shimmering, ruby and copper concoction. I paid just under $185 when I bought this bottle a couple of years ago. The nose is an incredible balance of dark chocolate, toffee, sweet sherry and a hint of oak. The nose is very inviting and luscious. The palate is chocolate and toffee rich, while staying somewhat oily. The bitterest sherry notes invade around mid sip and give this dram its only strikes. The wood bites you on the back end, as well. The finish is long, woody and bitter. The heat builds slowly and overtakes the bitterness and pushes it away, which is a welcome thing IMO. I added a little water in the hopes it would eliminate the bitterness. It allowed more chocolate to come through on the nose, calmed some of the bitter oak on that palate but it killed all the heat on the finish- which I didn’t really like. Overall, this suffers from the same issue I’ve had with almost every Dalmore I’ve tried to this point- the palate feels more harsh than it should. This being 18 years old should not suffer from the same shortcomings as a young or NAS whisky. This has to be something directly tied to the actual spirit itself, and not the barrels, finishes, etc. It makes me very leery to try the older bottles I have in my collection: the King Alexander and the 25yo. I feel like they’re going to suffer the same fate. This is a solid 4 star dram, but at some point Dalmore should be inching higher, they just aren’t. That’s what makes this a disappointment. I want a 5 star Dalmore, dammit.