When you initially embark into the odyssey of this liquid gold masterpiece, you feel as if you’re sitting at a backyard barbecue. Not like you’re just smelling the barbecue down the street as you walk your dogs by, but you are IN the barbecue. The sweet, the smoke, the meat, the burn. You are on the grill beside the porterhouse inhaling the fumes of the charcoal flames and that glorious red meat. Then after the smoke of the grill, just for a fleeting instance, you’re all gathered around the pool eating fresh homemade vanilla ice cream. It’s just a microcosm of a moment: solely so the sweetness doesn’t burst through the pallet as the forerunner of flavor; that’s alright, just a suggestion of sweetness is more than enough. After sweetness foolishly thought it had a chance, we’re back to the town of flavor with the taste of either of these three: 1.) a freshly burned, liquified Sharpie, 2.) a freshly felled white oak tree on a warm summer’s eve, or 3.) a fresh mouthful of smoldered ashes, most likely from an incinerated cigar factory. The interpretation, and choice, are up to the individual experience. I’m not here to judge, friends. Whichever flavor you experience, you experience it not only from your oral cavity, but furthermore via your nose, eyes, and ears. It’s due to the actuality this scotch never lets up from commencement to culmination. Even hours after you acquire that first memorable, incandescent sip you can sense it making its voyage down to your toes. And, really, what more could you ever aspire for? This is my special scotch to drink - the “Oh, you just got married? That’s not special enough to drink my Lagavulin” scotch. Five stars.