That's a nice collection. Very nice in fact. Lagavulin 16 is quite peaty, Smokey ash tones rather than TCP astringent flavours like Laphroaig. I can see it going well alongside cigars, though I don't smoke so that is speculation on my part.
I sampled each of them and thus far I order them as follows:
1. Tomintoul 16 - quite soft on the pallate with a subtle nutty taste, reminds me a bit of Glenlivet 12 in its nose and taste.
2. Caol Ila 12 - smoky aroma, but not over powering, the initial hit on the nose for me reminds me when I BBQ in the summer and use hickory wood to impart nice flavours into the meat. You get what I would call a peppery hit on the tongue, but a nice one, a bit like when you have cracked peppercorns on a steak. I am by no means a whisky connoisseur, but I think this would be a great introduction for someone looking to try out and get into Islay Whisky. Compared to laphroaig this is worlds appart and actually a very pleasant dram.
3. Highland Park 12 - to me it seemed to be the sweetest of the 6 I bought (not sure if you can use the word sweet to describe a whisky ???) it was a pleasant drink, no burn, no massive in your face wood or smoke hit, but none the less i found it really quite well balanced if not a bit light compared to the others
4. Glenkinchie 12 - I would classify this as a summer type of whisky, was really light on both the nose and on the palate. The falvours were really sublte, but I could see me sitting in the garden in the summer months with a good book and a bottle of this stuff quite easily.
5. Clynelish 14 - Jury still out for me on this one. I find it had quite a subtle smokiness to it, but really struggled to get anything else from it. For a 14 year old it just seemed to lack depth and structure, the after taste was also some what bitter if not a bit leathery, in fact I would say you could probably compare it in a sense to licking an aged leather jacket (not that I have done this, but based on aroma I would say this is what a leather jacket that was about 15 years old would taste like)
6. Glenfiddich 15 - didn't get on with this at all.It's got a pre/during/after burn that I really couldn't get on with. In fact i would say it was a struggle for me to even finish of a small dram. I actually came back to this one as I thought I hadn't given it a fair run, but it was actually worse 2nd time around. I think it might be the bourbon case it has spent time in that imparts the kind of palate I am not keen on. I'll be honest and say bourbon is a full no go zone for me as it just burns and you don't get any nice flavours or aromas from it, it's like snorting battery acid fumes in my opinion.
