@cascode Yes it was definitely a mindset shift for me as in the early stages I had a stronger attachment to wanting to see a correlation between age and price...and still do to a degree. I suppose it's because you know something about what it represents and where it is positioned in the mkt place unlike NASs but then that is what reading reviews of people you trust is all about..helping to fill in the gaps and help quantify the personal value proposition.

@Soba45 As you say there are many reasons for NAS releases and it's too simplistic to rubbish them out of hand. I think the idea about offloading bad barrels and dumping failed experiments into NAS expressions (or TRE expressions for that matter) is exaggerated. There is always the side-car market for that stuff like the single malts that Aldi, Lidl and other supermarkets sell under their house brand names. I'm inclined to think that most NAS is done simply because distilleries don't want to put a single-digit age statement on the bottle after decades of brainwashing folks into thinking that old whisky is always guaranteed to be best. They were all caught short about 15 years ago when whisky enthusiasm exploded world-wide and they had to do something to compensate for their lack of aged stock. NAS also allows them to create excellent single-house vattings like Lore. Would Lore sell as well if they had to say "8 years old" on the label, or would this sell as well if they stated "7 years old"?

@Ctrexman Nice you can't go wrong with that lot (assuming you like the Ledaig profile...that can be polarizing!) I'd say the order for me would be Bunnahabhain 18, HP 18, Talisker 18 and Ledaig 18

@Ctrexman Sadly as you allude too many distillers use NAS's to pump out younger stuff at higher volume, fill gaps in their inventory, dump crap casks and so on so often they are done badly but with Kilchoman whilst people may not like a NAS bottling I believe (currently) they do they do what they do because they are aiming for a quality product vs the underlying driver being the other motives. Anyway I'll stop waxing lyrically....haha...It is hard as you say to swallow the price when you can get much older stock for similar prices.

Very good point ...fair enough, peated doesnt need all that ageing . I am considering an 18yr spree however with Talisker,Bunnahabhain, HP and Ledaig

@Ctrexman Cheers :-). I quite like the blend of younger and older like Laphroaig Lore. As @cascode commented on another review young, middle and and old especially with peated whiskies all add different parts which combined add up to a very well integrated, flavorful and balanced whiskey. The older the releases get with this distillery the wider ranges of ages you get blended and it really becomes part of the skill of the blender to marry them all to their vision.

Nice review ...I need to try more from Kilchoman just wish they were age statement for the $$

@cascode Yeah the scores are as random as the reviewers surprise surprise! It would be good to have reviewers aligned to certain areas of expertise to get more consistency e.g those who like peat review peated drams. The joys of random outsourcing!

Yep, pretty much my impressions as well. I wish Distiller would have a diffreent "expert" (*cough*) reviewer rate this - the current official score of 79 is delusional.