I was looking for a few 200ml bottles of some regular expressions for which I have the Distillers Editions to do a side by side, and the pack that came with two of them had this in it. Fortunately people seem to like this a lot so it wasn’t like I ended up stuck with something awful.
Minutia: Seems this features Bourbon and Sherry casks. Enjoyed neat in a glencairn.
Color: Russet muscat, 1.3.
Nose: Crisp fruit, apple. Underlying honey. Malt comes in and takes over, letting those other aromas in now and again, though sometimes those recurrences have a musty introduction.
Taste: Mostly malt, some fruit. Tastes nothing like cherry, artificial or natural, but reminds me of it, so I guess some cherry-like fruit I’ve not yet eaten. Low impact of ethanol creates a spicy sensation.
Finish: Slightly smoky (ever so slightly, I can’t stress how little, but it’s there a bit so worth mentioning) with apple, malt, and some honey at play.
I’ve seen this described as being peated, but I suspect whoever wrote it might be confusing it with the malt used by Brora when it was known as Clynelish or I was reading something that was about Clynelish of the past but thought it was about the present. Scotchwhisky.com’s whiskypedia lists their malt specification as non-peated. If this is in fact peated, it’s not really useful to think of it as such as it’s simply not a present factor. Maybe it’s like Bunnahabhain’s core expressions where peat is involved but only nominally, or whoever does the malting for Clynelish looks over at a pile of peat as they dry the barley with gas or whatever it is that’s used by the heathens who make barley 50% as good as it could be. Still, it’s simple and not punchy, but nice. I won’t seek more for myself, but it’s nice to know it exists as an option when I’m not looking for peat but want something lighter with some substance. If I find myself ever curating my home selection to have bottles that appeal to people other than me, it’s a likely choice to keep on hand in that case.
Score: 81
Musical Evocation: Buckethead – “Binge and Grab”
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