Nose: Lemon, orange and mandarin, but not bright or sharp - more like the smell of old-fashioned home-made lemonade. Mango, pineapple and other tropical fruit and later a more floral aspect emerges with honeysuckle, frangipani and vanilla blossom aromas. Gentle oak, some musky sandalwood and coconut in support. Palate: A silky, deliciously sweet and creamy entry with crème brûlée and juicy sweet citrus in tandem. In the development a warm glow of mild sweet ginger and tropical fruits in natural juice comes forward edged by oatmeal cookies and a faint note of salt. The texture is glistening and satiny right through. It's not a particularly complex palate, but what is there is very good indeed. Finish: Long. Honey and fruit juice tail out into a creamy oak aftertaste. I buy around a dozen SMWS bottlings each year but although I usually have a bottle open I've never reviewed one here before. I'm not quite sure why - I guess it's a niche of a niche, and many of the bottles are local to specific areas, so it doesn't seem relevent. However in this case I'm reviewing the heels of this bottle as I ceremonially kill it off just so I have one representative SMWS review posted, and because I particularly liked this 9 year old expression of Linkwood. The name the SMWS tasting panel gave this bottle is 100% on target. It's a full-on tropical breakfast (on a sunny balcony overlooking a pristine beach, with a partner who has just applied sunscreen) and it's quite wonderful. The tasting notes I've given are for the neat dram, but apart from one quick neat taste for the experience I never drink these whistle-clean single-cask whiskies neat. In my opinion they don't reach their full potential without water, whether that is literally just a few drops or a good solid splash. In this case I found through trial and error (that's all part of the fun) that reducing it from 59.9% to just under 50% was the perfect spot for my tastes. Doing so lost none of the neat character, but on the contrary expanded it and added extra creaminess to the texture while removing the inevitable high-proof "nip". A very enjoyable whisky, now sadly finished but not to worry - the next SMWS bottle I open will be just as good, or maybe better (and occasionally not quite this good, but meh, c'est la vie). I've never had an SMWS bottle that I've rated less than 83/100, which for me is 3.5 on the 5 star scale here. "Very Good" : 87/100 (4.25 stars)