The OCUK Whisky (and Whiskey) review thread

had a good few bottles of the Ben Riach and Glendronach whiskys in tha last week.
Good range of peated ones, the solstice (17yr old) was tremendous for a peated finish, I also really liked the madeira wood finish
the curiositas was nice but a lot of peat flavour in it, and the sherry finished one was nice but not quite as lovely as the maderia one!

(in case you were wondering this was a selection for toasts at my wedding so got 8 bottles of nice ones - didn't drink them all myself!)
 
finally got round to opening my secret stills

22 and a bit year old highland..from oldmeldrum..handily there is only 1 distillery there

so this is a 22 year old Glen Garioch...and its bloody lovely. this will date from beofre the rebranding and so has a slight peaty edge that isnt in the more recent releases

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Bought myself 2x 3cl samples of Yellow Spot and Br4 whiskys and it seemed a shame to only order those so I bought my second bottle of Green Spot whisky as the first was so nice :/

The both the samples were nice but the Yellow Spot was lovely... Just not sure it's worth the £60 ish price tag since I love the slightly younger Green Spot anyway which is almost half the price!
 
First up. Ben Nevis 1992 / 20 Year Old / Sherry Butt #2308 / Signatory.

Look: Pale gold.
Nose: Slightly nutty. Touch of lemon. Mild spice. No sign of anything to indicate it's been matured in a sherry butt.
palate: At last a faint hint of sherry (only after adding water; and even then, very faint). Slight peat. Slight oak.
Finish: Short and light.

Really struggled with this one. My parents are big fans of Ben Nevis but I never have been. I had hopes that a 20yo finished in sherry butts might be the answer - sadly not. I think I'll seal it up and send it to my folks - at least they might get some enjoyment out of it. It's not a bad whisky, it's just bland and uninteresting.
 
Next: An Cnoc 22yo.

This is more like it.

Look: Dark gold.
Nose: Spice. Fruit. Peat. Oak.
Palate: Raisin' Oak/Vanilla. Peat. Spice.
Finish: Medium finish. Sweet and creamy with a hint of smoke.

This one has good flavours but quite subtle. Water washes a lot of the flavour away so I would definitely recommend drinking this as it comes.
 
Last one for tonight (I'll try the other 2 over the weekend): Lagavulin 1991 Distiller's edition.

Look: Light brown.
Nose: SMOKE!!! Chocolate. Seaweed. Bitter chocolate.
Palate. SMOKE!!! Chocolate. Hay. Christmas pud.
Finish: Longish. Sweet and smoky.

Very nice whisky. Very smoky with a complex palate. Sweet and fruity from the sherry cask. I've had the 1994 version of the same whisky and this is very similar - twice the price though. If you fancy something like this, just get the 1994, there's not a lot of difference.
 
I fancied some whisky (or whiskey technically) but as there wasn't much left of my Green Spot I decided to go buy something. I didn't want to spend too much but I remembered seeing rather positive views on Bushmills stuff on Whisky Exchange so I bought a bottle from Tesco.

For £20 I wasn't expecting much but it's not bad :) Maybe I just have a thing for Irish whiskey
 
to update: they had some balvenie caribbean cask 14yo at tesco so i went for that in the end, will provide a vague review later :P

edit: this stuff is gorgeous!
 
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