Cragganmore 12 Special Release 2019

I tried Cragganmore 12 when I was looking to take a break from peat, and had heard nice enough things that it fit the bill. I found it ok, but lacking some kind of punch. As a fan of peat, I felt it was the punch it needed, and some ABV over the measly 40% wouldn’t hurt. I liked that enough to take a shot on this after reading other notes here. After reviewing Caol Ila, Lagavulin, and Talisker Distillers Editions, I got the idea to revisit them in a side by side with their regular counterparts. Not wanting to spend the money on whole bottles of that when I’m overflowing my storage as is, I found the little “Classic Malts” sets of 20ml bottles and figured it would be a great way to do that without breaking the bank and eating up space at home. Fortunately for me, one of those packs included a tiny bottle of Cragganmore 12, and since my bottle of that is long gone I thought it would be fun to include a comparison in this review. So, here we go.

Cragganmore 12 Special Release 2019, Speyside Single Malt, 58.4% ABV

Minutia: Matured in refill American oak casks, this was a peated run of Cragganmore from when Diageo was worried about a drought on Skye compromising their stock of medium peated malt. That never came to be so they had the barrels and fortunately released them on their own instead of shipping them off the be blended. Enjoyed neat in a glencairn alongside the standard Cragganmore 12.

Color: Old gold, 0.6.

Nose: Malty and fruity, unmistakably like the standard 12. Little smoke if any, but coming back after nosing the 12 it’s there in a pretty big way. Kind of fun to see how differently things can be perceived under different circumstances.

Taste: Honey, that same Cragganmore malt that was in the nose, heat comes in and builds to wood and smoke.

Finish: Spicy smoke. Medium. After it’s mostly gone it’s a bit nutty.

At the end of the day, I’m glad I picked up this bottle. I liked it quite a bit more than the standard expression. I’m interested in trying a cask strength version of that without the peat to see how much of that difference is peat vs alcohol. I almost think it was a mistake to release this as going to the standard 12 after a sip of this, to my tastes it is outright boring, almost bordering on unpleasant. This drinks easily while still letting you know it’s there. It’s a nice dram to just have a glass of while lounging or spending time with friends.

Score: 83

Musical Evocation: Buckethead – “Ghost Host”