My first ever peated scotch. I'm not ashamed to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. That is, until I decided to go online and read the nearly unanimously awful reviews. Suddenly I wondered if there was something wrong with my sense of smell and taste, or perhaps me in general. No... There was nothing wrong with me. Just a lack of experience... For I was an Islay virgin before that dram. However I am now cursed as I hold a dear nostalgic bond to this now admittedly rather sub par peated offering from bowmore. I lost my Islay virginity to McLellands Islay single Malt, and for that reason I will always long for it. I could smell an intensely chocolaty sweet aroma from the glass almost five feet from my nose, and as I sipped the smoky spirit from my newly purchased glencairn glass while gazing through a large window at my snow covered street, I felt as though I was being warmed by a well fueled fireplace on a cold winter night. I had never tasted anything like it before. The campfire smoke filled my nostrils, and the clay/plasticine finish reminded me of my early days in kindergarten when I would sculpt what I considered to be masterpieces. From my earliest memories as a child, to my happiest memory as an adult sipping scotch by myself in the dead of winter at 2am... McLellands Islay single malt brought me to a place and set me down a path that no other Scotch whisky had or could have before. I owe my love of peated scotch to it... Today, malts from Lagavulin, Ardbeg and Laphroaig reign supreme, but on that particular night it was a young bowmore that had my full undivided attention. She was objectively not the best looking, but to me on that night....A goddess.