Enjoyable but perhaps doesn’t quite deliver what you would expect from the colour. This still has that classic Speyside distillery medium-light spirit style. Plenty of fruit and chocolate from the cask maturation and later some tannins and pleasant spices keep things interesting.
Sweet and fruity from the Manzanilla sherry finish ads to the cereal and malt rich Glen Moray core flavours, very enjoyable. 86/100
A delightful vintage expression from anCnoc, full of their classic honey character. The Spanish oak has imparted some leather and chocolate notes too. A worthy addition to anCnoc’s fine vintage range. 84/100
Good balance and approachable sherried Islay malt. Pleasant but could be so much more! At 40% this is a bit soft and a bit safe for me I’d like a touch more intensity to these flavours and experience.
An accomplished Auchroisk from a refill bourbon cask. Vanilla and cereals lead with touch of fruit and plenty of white chocolate, delicious! 84/100
Oddly salted but good, butterscotch and fruit flavours, plenty of tropicality and a really good body/structure or malty backbone to this one. 86/100
Fruity, solventy and woody. A clever mix which stays entertaining but becomes a touch spicy and vaporous towards the end. 84/100
A touch tannic and spicy in places at full strength. This presents an unusual mixture of red fruits and toffee which is oddly harmonious. Another predictably excellent, wine cask influenced, Glen Moray. 85/100
Remarkably well-aged and rejuvenated whisky which is massively drinkable in no small part to the PX polish of sweet dried fruit, nut and chocolate influences layered over some really deep, fibrous and chewy old wood. Hugely complex as befitting its heritage and the era it was created and distilled but also fresh and approachable thanks to the finishing – this is an aged whisky made for drinking & enjoying! 92/100
A fire-breathing beast of a dram from Spey which manages to capture everything from the light fruity apple nature of Spey’s distillate and plenty of Bourbon cask classic flavours too. Perfect at CS or with a healthy sploosh of water, the smoke travels a long way. 86/100
The Whiskyphiles 