An easygoing Bourbon with plenty of expected sweetness and some rather herbal spice notes keeps this one interesting and entertaining. 84/100
Yellowstone Select
Chateau de Lacquy VSOP
Quite neutral despite its obvious fruity nature the sweetness has been tempered by plenty of wood talking here and saying good things. I really enjoyed this one. 85/100
Drouin Reserve Des Fiefs
Superb, creamy textured and vibrantly fruity this has something of a curd or yoghurty nature and the youth comes through as banana milkshake (estery and creamy). A great insight into Drouin’s base spirit nature. 84/100
Islay #1 10 Years Old Batch 3
Basic but delicious Islay malt, an oddly unsalted sweet and smoky combo. 84/100
James E. Pepper 4 Years Old Rye Batch 3
Quite spicy Rye as you’d expect but also a nice cake-y sweet & malty feel to it, I was surprised to discover this was ale-cask finished after tasting it – so very well integrated cask-finish here. 83/100
MacNair’s Lum Reek Peated 12 Years Old
Solid. A touch non-descript in places though I often find with blends it can be hard to discern distinct taste notes. A good mixture of sweet and peat without resorting to too much ‘cask’ influences. 83/100
Starward Solera
Fruity and spiced, well balanced and with plenty of maltiness here too. Tasting blind/forgetting the heritage of this one I assumed some Australian Red wine casks had been at work here. 84/100
Benromach Contrasts Peat Smoke
A delicious experience of dry and sweet from the combination of peated malt and sherry casks. Still quite a lot of minerality and salinity which had me viewing this as not your ‘usual’ Benromach. 85/100
Torabhaig Allt Gleann
A little sweeter with more fruit and a touch more spirity perhaps than the Legacy release, plenty of flavour here with sweet barley, smoky & peppery peat and salty coastal influences.
Ailsa Bay 1.2 Sweet Smoke
I enjoyed this one much more than the first release. Remarkable similarity in my comments – Promises Islay but doesn’t have the weight/structure or malty backbone to deliver it. This expression has lots of sweet fruitiness to balance the dry peat smoke and is very reminiscent of many Islay malts – resulting in a very enjoyable dram – I wonder if WG&S are experimenting at making their own Islay style malt here in the absence of a distillery on the island?
The Whiskyphiles 