Here we go again, with another obscure Scottish distillery that our group needed to complete a tour of Scotland: Abhainn Dearg (pronounced AV-un JUH-ruk). This small distillery is located off the western coast of Scotland on the Isle of Lewis. It was founded in 2008 by Marco Tayburn and its name means Red River. It’s a very small place that only produces around 10k liters of whisky per year. This is their Inaugural Release, which I believe is a 3 year old that’s bottled at 46%. It’s pale straw in color and makes some big, heavy droplets around your glass. The nose starts out rather interesting and non-offensive: butterscotch, boxed raisins, toffee and cereal. There’s some warm, mineral oil notes wafting out of the glass given some time, but I don’t get any barrel or alcohol notes at all. The palate is borderline gag inducing at the start. I got some ethanol and school glue type of flavors initially and almost spit the stuff out, but being a bit brave I swirled it around a bit and let some air mingle in and I was rewarded with a bit of butterscotch and caramel. The problem was that nothing mingled well- it either the harsh stuff or a quick bit of sweetness. The finish was short and pretty harsh with mostly alcohol heat and dry wood notes. It felt too thin and abrasive to let anything get past the heat. It really drove home a rough sensation. At least it’s over. I can’t really say I enjoyed this one much. Thanks to my buddy, @PBMichiganWolverine I got to try this one. I see no reason to revisit this one even if they eventually get some 10-15 stuff to market. There just wasn’t enough of anything redeeming for me to invest more time or money to find out. Let’s just rate this one 2 stars and tick the distillery off the list. Cheers.