Jose-Massu-Espinel
Compass Box Spice Tree
Blended Malt — Scotland
Reviewed
April 12, 2020 (edited September 25, 2020)
This was the only core expression from Compass Box that i haven't had before, and once again, Compass box dissapoints me a little.
CBW is known for been "the best blenders" and the artist of blending, and even been "the ones who make a better whisky by blending them", but to this date, with the exception of peat monster and maybe one other expression i can't seem to remember now (and that says a lot about it), i really haven't had a spectacular compass box whisky. Don't get me wrong, they are fine, better than most blends, but they sure are not as wonderful as their fame says.
This one, was bottled at 46%abv.
On the nose, fresh field notes, grapes, lemon and acetone.
On the palate, prunes, ashes, lemon, citric, and some peat.
Not spicy, but ashy, which can be consider as a spice... at least for my palate it is.
Finish is very short, lots of points were deducted there.
Overall i give this dram a 74/100 and i don't think it is bad, but it is nothing to die for.
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@Jan-Case Hi Jan! thanks for the comment. y favorite CB is "NO NAME" and yesterday i had a wonderful one called Myths & Legends, be sure to pick that one up
@Jose-Massu-Espinel regarding your great Instagram you have quite some Compass Box expertise. Since I fall in line with a lot of your tastes and likings I wanted to ask which Compass Box was your absolute favorite taste-wise and which one is the best value?
@claptonfan756 Everyone experiences things differently, there is often batch variation and once great whiskeys get debased or become a shell of their previous selves due to stocks being stretched to far, lack of planning or general all round cost cutting. It's a good whiskey and I rated it higher many years ago but I wouldn't say amazing complexity.
I think it's a good and fair review and as you say you generally are on the higher rather than lower side for ratings. Compass Box a long time ago did amazing stuff at great prices. Now they do a lot of average stuff at often stupid prices.
@Jan-Kaselitz i fully agree. In this case (the whisky case) everyone has to determine which one is their favorite and which one they hate. and for thw record, my score of 74 over 100 means it was not bad at all, it is just normal
I experienced that whisky in general is and remains mostly subjective. Sure there are lots of whiskies people agree on being awesome, but in the end it will always come down to personal taste. Everyone experiences it differently and that is one of the beauties of this whole topic. And also experience as well. I only am submerged into the whole whisky world for about a year. And obviously the lack of experience causes a lack of judgment as well. But that is fine because whisky always is simply as good as you think it is. Oh and btw - a 3,5 rating on my scale is actually a really good rating.
@claptonfan756 hi! i am actually very criticized for giving high scores to whiskies. out of my 570 reviews, only 30 or 40 are bad reviews, the problem is that i just came to this app Distiller and i added all my reviews, BUT started with the 5 stars ones, and i finished with the low scoring ones. That is why you might have read my bad reviews, since they were posted recently in comparison to the good reviews. and talking about this whisky, i just didn't like it, that is the beauty of whisky, what i think is not good, might be good for other people and viceversa; so, its a matter of different opinions.
Have you ever created a positive review? Everything I have read that was created by you is negative. The Spice Tree is an amazing whisky - why are you blind to its amazing complexity?