Nose: toffee or caramel fudge, red apple, honey cheerios, floral, malt, toast Palate: light, young, pear, has spiky edges and a sourness Finish: nutty spiciness, sourness _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_- Last 16, Match 6: Sheep Dip versus BenRiach Curiositas 10yo Sheep Dip is a blended malt that has changed hands as a brand several times and is now owned by Ian Macleod Distillers. It was previously owned by Whyte & Mackay and it seems old big-nose Richard Patterson still has a hand in this, or at least did so until recently. The nose holds up well enough (the whisky’s, not Patterson’s) with a fresh and malty waft but is no match for the sweet smoke of Curiositas. Although a blended malt it has a grainy taste and a battery-licking tanginess that seems to betray a youth at odds with the official description of a blend of 16 different individual malts aged from 8 to 21 years old. The finish is short with a pleasant nutty spiciness but is held back by a slight sourness. Both the palate and finish are behind the deeper, sherry influenced peat notes of the Curiositas. It’s ewe-nanimous and so, shorn of dignity and without a ruminant of pride, it sheepishly leaves the arena ^groan^ _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_- The intolerable torment of a whiskyphile. I have too large a backlog of samples and miniatures to go through. Like selecting what to watch next on Netflix, often selecting a dram can take twice as long as drinking it. So I developed a plan so clever you could put a tail on it and call it a fox. I have picked sixteen scotch whiskies that are 12yrs or younger or NAS to battle it out in a Scotch Deathmatch. It’s my incentive to lighten the logjam. Follow along if you care (and really why should you?). Oh the drama! https://challonge.com/ScotchMadness