This is the final dram of this now empty bottle. It is my favorite whisky so far. I wanted to give it a whole bottle that I opened in early November to come back to every so often to see how it’s ranking compares to other whiskies of all varieties. And I can say my first impression still stands and it was, is and remains my favorite so far. For me it is near perfect. It is young, unique, wild, vibrant, complex, flavorful, has a lot of variety and every stage is so enjoyable from A to Z. This 10 years old whisky is triple cask matured in virgin oak, bourbon and rum casks. This sounds as wild as this whisky is. Nose: the peat, despite what others say, for me not intense or harsh - it is fresh and floaty and just builds nice brackets around this otherwise speysidy aspects. What’s makes this interesting is that the peat they used is from the highlands region which creates a in my eyes beautiful fusion. It is not the kind of peat that you associate with bacon or smoked foods. It is just a base solid peat not to overwhelming or aggressive. On the nose you also get vanilla, lemon peel, malt sugars, walnut, orchard fruits and cocoa. And while this somehow sounds the same as a lot of other whiskies (especially Speyside) the triple casks are blended so well together with that very well leveled peat, that it makes this different and unique to everything else I have tasted so far. It has Highland Park 18 qualities (meaning the peat part to it) but the BenRiach Speyside base gives it the fruity smoothness. It works just so perfectly together. Palate: very sweet and malty at first and completed by a slight burn that doesn’t really feel like 46% ABV. It is definitely not oily and more in the rocky and fresh side. You also get fresh warm toasted wheat bread (French baguette) and a very friendly peat that lays some enjoyable wood and smoke on the tongue - wild and fresh and not meaty or aged at all. There also is lots of fruits now with mango and pineapple and milky caramel / toffee. Finish: long and surprisingly not to dry. Leaves a wooden and sweet malty summer hay taste in you mouth for quiet some time. The finish is the only reason I don’t give it a full 5 rating. If the palate would offer some oilyness to transition into the finish with some of that smooth fruitiness it would be a 100/100 for me. I guess that would be achieved with a couple more years in the barrels, but that might make it miss the vibrance and freshness that it has now. But for this reason it is a 98/100 for me. It may sound weird but the whisky in combination of nose and palate is like a Bob Ross painting for me. It has a lot of details that are just a combination of several simple aspects - but in the end when it is all combined it falls in place so well, that it looks like it has been created with much more time and effort. It hasn’t but the product in the end looks so perfect and well rounded that it doesn’t matter how long it took to create and with what simple techniques - in a finished combination it just feels perfect and right. So right that you want to look at it again and again wondering how it was done. This will be a stable in my whisky collection.