Auchroisk Old Malt Cask K&L Excl., 24yo (1994/2019)

Rating28.3/40
OriginScotland, Central Speyside
DistilleryAuchroisk
OwnerDiageo
DistilledFebruary 1994
BottlerDouglas Laing
SeriesOld Malt Cask
StyleSingle Barrel Single Malt
CaskRefill Hogshead HL15186
BottledJune 2019
Bottles239
Strength54.5% (106.8 Proof)
RetailerK&L Wine Merchants

Auchroisk is not exactly a well known distillery with a significant presence on store shelves. And so it’s always a pleasure and interesting to find some expression, especially an older one like this. Let’s see how it stacks up!

Nose: Purple flowers. Why purple? I don’t know. But it does smell like purple flowers. Not lavender though. Some other purple flower. It’s not easy getting past that floweriness and diving deeper into the nose because it’s quite snappy like a tense cat. Approach at an angle it doesn’t like and you get bit. Quite pretty but flowery noses aren’t generally my thing. (6.7/10)

Palate: The flowery notes don’t go away but they cease to be flowery. Probably because someone has set the bouquet on fire and then tried (and failed) to put it out with honey water. (7.3/10)

Finish: A quite wonderful heat spreads down the back of the throat toeing but not crossing the line to discomfort. The flavors however do not keep up with the heat leaving little but prickly sparkles of mild bitterness along the roof of the mouth. (7.1/10)

Balance:  I think some folks would like this a lot more than I do but it’s just not well aligned with my preferences. For me it’s a decent dram that doesn’t quite manage to deliver on its innate potential. (7.2/10)

Johnnie Walker Double Black

Rating27.1/40
OriginScotland
BlenderDiageo
SeriesJohnnie Walker
EditionDouble Black
StyleBlended Whisky
PeatedYes
CaskBlend aced in heavily charred casks.
Strength40% (80 Proof)

Introduced around 2012 or so, the Double Black was a new concoction by master blender Jim Beveridge. After blending the whisky is matured in “deep-charred old oak casks” which adds additional smoke and depth. Whether or not the whisky is already cask aged prior to blending I’m not certain. Either way, it’s actually one of my preferred choices in the Johnnie Walker line-up.

Nose: A salty, meaty smoke, kind of like German Landjaegers or ham. Light but quite solid and mildly prickly with a hint of mint emerging on the back end. Satisfying but doesn’t evolve much. (6.8/10)

Palate: The initial impact comes with a weird watery numbness out which the peat smoke from the nose emerges. Though that smoke has now shifted over to a mossier, fuzzier and earthier range on the spectrum. From there the whole thing separates into actual smoke and slightly watery liquid right on the verge of the finish. (6.3/10)

Finish: The smoke that rose out of the liquid hangs around for quite some time in the upper regions of the throat and mouth. It’s now reminiscent of very dry earth. There is even a nice bit of warmth evolving in the chest though it’s limited by the low strength of this whisky. Still the finish is rather enjoyable. (7.4/10)

Balance: While the finish punches above its weight it also, unfortunately, takes the wind out of the sails of the nose and palate on subsequent sips. For that it gets dinged a bit on the balance. Usually I’d rate a whisky that finishes on a high not comparably high on balance but not in this case. (6.6/10)

BenRiach The Smoky Twelve, 12yo

Rating29.4/30
OriginScotland, Speyside, Lossie
DistilleryBenRiach
OwnerBrown-Forman
StyleSingle Malt
PeatedYes
CaskBourbon, Sherry and Marsala Casks
Strength46% (92 Proof)
WhiskybaseWhiskybase

The Smoky Twelve is one of the 4 base-line expressions of BenRiach recently revamped by their master blender, Dr. Rachel Barrie. I had the opportunity to taste all of them side-by-side which always makes for a very interesting experience. This one turned out to be my second favorite in that group.

Nose: Hm…. hello? Anybody there? This is a very shy nose. There’s something in the glass though. A little peat kitten hiding at the bottom, mewling forth little puffs of soft smoke. Very, very slowly the nose dares to emerge from the glass. A more refined smoke than the Smoky Ten but, for, uh, peat’s sake, please, come out of there already! Have a bit of fun in my nose! I won’t hurt you, I promise. Hints of mint. Or perhaps I’m hallucinating. Feeling a little bit lightheaded from the effort of breathing so hard to pull this nose up out of the glass. (7.0/10)

Palate: Hits with the texture of dry, dark chocolate. Quiet on flavors at first but subtly buzzing like a lit fuse. Then, after a few moments, flavor unfolds like an old canvas unrolling to reveal a rich painting of billowing dark smoke over glowing red depths. This is quite lovely and rather unexpected based on the nose. Not so unexpected is the degree of complexity compared to the Smoky Ten. Once again, as with the Original Ten and The Twelve, those extra 2 years made a huge difference. (7.6/10)

Finish: Not entirely unlike the Smoky Ten, the finish is struggling just a little bit to stay level. It’s really good though. Layers of smoke build up and only deflate occasionally and briefly. This one reaches just a little deeper into the chest than the Smoky Ten and flares up more pronouncedly on each breath. There’s a slight green aftertaste but it doesn’t bother me too much. (7.5/10)

Balance: All sides of this whisky are worth exploring but, man, that nose takes some effort to get to. No matter though. Once you’re a few sips in all is good and the struggle is quickly forgotten. The Smoky Ten is just fine but this one takes the same concept a notch or two further up. For BenRiach those extra 2 years from 10 to 12 have proven magical both for these peated and the non-peated expressions. Out of the basic BenRiach line-up revamped by Dr. Rachel Barrie both this and The Twelve have turned out to be clear successes. I’ll be happy to spot them on some bar’s shelf and have a dram or two. (7.3/10)

BenRiach The Smoky Ten, 10yo

Rating27.0/40
OriginScotland, Speyside, Lossie
DistilleryBenRiach
OwnerBrown-Forman
StyleSingle Malt
PeatedYes
CaskBourbon, Jamaican Rum and Toasted Virgin Oak
Strength46% (92 Proof)
WhiskybaseWhiskybase

The Smoky Ten is one of the 4 base-line expressions of BenRiach recently revamped by their master blender, Dr. Rachel Barrie. I had the opportunity to taste all of them side-by-side which always makes for a very interesting experience.

Nose: The peat jumps right out of the glass with some green, herbal notes that turn slightly floral later on. For some reason this is making me think of those little, biodegradable seed starter pots. Not a whole lot of complexity past that but that’s fine. If you pay careful attention you may notice the faint sparkly of bright citrus notes somewhere underneath it all. (6.8/10)

Palate: Simple and direct. The same peat as described for the nose arrives unceremoniously and unfolds with ease, spreading wide but not particularly high, and simply stays right there at the same level and with the same notes carrying straight into the finish. The first few sips seem to leave a thin slathering of watery sweetness on the tongue but that quickly goes away as the finish begins to dominate the experience. (6.8/10)

Finish: The finish picks up seamlessly from the palate and it manages to wipe out those odd watery bits on the palate. However, it’s almost like the finish is running on a slightly undersized engine. It develops a pleasant warmth but keeps struggling to push it into the chest. It continues the flavors from the palate but keeps fading away like a fire fed with cold logs. One has to breathe on it and then it comes back as if nothing happened. (6.7/10)

Balance: A quite lovely basic expression of a quite strongly peated Speysider. Not overly complex but perfectly satisfying. It’s only real shortcoming is that finish struggling to stay alive, dipping and rising like a tired swimmer. A swimmer wearing smoldering peat speedos. Anyhow, it’s perfectly drinkable and delivers all the comforts of peat. B/c it doesn’t require special attention this one would probably be the perfect whisky to drink while reading an engaging book sitting in a comfortable chair near the fireplace. (6.7/10)

BenRiach The Twelve, 12yo

Rating30.8/40
OriginScotland, Speyside, Lossie
DistilleryBenRiach
OwnerBrown-Forman Corporation
StyleSingle Malt
CaskSherry, Bourbon and Port casks
Strength46% (92 Proof)
WhiskybaseWhiskybase

The Twelve is one of the 4 base-line expressions of BenRiach recently revamped by their master blender, Dr. Rachel Barrie. I had the opportunity to taste all of them side-by-side which always makes for a very interesting experience. This one turned out to be my favorite in that group.

Nose: Whoa… what a change from the Original 10! Usually I expect age to round off and diminish certain notes but this one has truly come to life with just another 2 years added. Darkly stained antique oranges, pleasingly arranged on an equally antique leather topped oak desk that’s been polished perhaps a week ago. A well disciplined nose, too. Somehow it’s managing to form a fairly precisely delineated volume hovering half an inch above the top of the glass like a mushroom cap and it doesn’t seem to move or spread from there. You can sort of just stick your nose into that space whenever you feel like having another whiff. This is quite nice! (7.7/10)

Palate: For a bottle strength whisky that’s a surprisingly bulky and solid mass pushing its way through the door, warmly buzzing into the room and spreading itself around comfortably wherever it can. It’s sort of all the bits from the nose but not in that formal arrangement. All the bits of wood, leather and antique oranges are stuck in a mildly sweet blob of delicious, honeyed dessert goop. The sweetness added to the other notes make for a nice balance of flavor all around. And unlike the Original 10 it doesn’t quickly fade away either. This is also quite nice! (7.7/10)

Finish: I wish the flavors of the palate carried over into the finish more. There are echoes that come to life on each breath but primarily the finish is all about an intense bright spot of heat in the very back of the throat radiating in every direction and, once again surprisingly for a bottle strength dram, quite deep into the chest. After waiting for a bit the deep and comforting heat makes you forget and forgive the loss of the palate’s flavors. If I was rating for the immediate finish only it I would have rated it slightly lower. But, after all, this is quite nice! (7.7/10)

Balance: Well now. Comparing this against the Original 10… we have a clear winner. Almost everything about this is, forgive me, quite nice! And the brief disappointment I experienced with the early finish can be easily forgiven. Nicely done, Dr. Rachel Barrie! (7.7/10)

Lagavulin Offerman Edition, 11yo, 2019

Rating27.7/40
OriginScotland, Islay, South Shore
DistilleryLagavulin
OwnerDiageo
EditionOfferman Edition
StyleSingle Malt
PeatedYes
CaskRe-filled and re-juvenated American Oak Barrels
BottledAugust 2019
Strength46% (92 Proof)
WhiskybaseWhiskybase

According to the marketing blurb this whisky was created in partnership with Parks & Recreations’ Nick Offerman. What exactly that partnership involved is not entirely clear to me. Nor does it matter much. I’m always up for trying a new Lag when one pops up. Which, unfortunately, does not happen all that often.

Nose: Fresh peat brightly leaps out of a box of thin mints. This is one of the rare noses with what I can only describe as horizontal geometry. That’s how my brain experiences it anyways. It seems to be wide rather than tall and slices into my head right through my sinuses. I like peat a lot but this feels almost a little… green? Is there such a thing as unripe peat? (6.9/10)

Palate: Again with this green quality of the peat. I like the sparkly brightness of it, but it lacks the depth and heaviness I most appreciate in my favorite peaty malts. And this one wears itself out quickly on my tongue. It sort of shrinks and vanishes there towards the center leaving next to nothing behind other than a mild burn. (5.9/10)

Finish: The very moment the whisky goes down it releases a voluminous cloud of peat smoke that finally no longer contains that green unripe element of itself. However, that cloud is also really just an overblown puff of bright smoke and quickly fades into seeming emptiness. After a few more moments, when things have calmed down, I suddenly discover a much quieter and richer, dark peat smoke that’s quietly accumulated deep down in my chest, accompanied by a little bit of mellow heat. Hey, that’s actually rather nice! (8.0/10)

Balance: The reward here is in the very distant last part of the finish. I really could do without those bright, young, unripe and green elements up front. And I’m not sure the finish of the finish is truly worth the effort given that I could just drink some Lag 16 or 12 cask strength or one of the Distiller’s Editions which I think are much, much more rewarding overall. (6.9/10)

[White Oak] Meikakuna Trader Joe’s Excl.

Rating29.6/40
OriginJapan, Hyogo Prefecture
Distillery[White Oak]
Owner[Eigashima Shuzo]
BlenderShiki Shuzo Corporation
StyleBlended Whisky
Strength43% (86 Proof)
RetailerTrader Joe’s

Despite there being virtually no information on the bottle, the clue to this having been distilled at Eigashima Shuzo’s White Oak distillery is that the bottle says this was distilled in Hyogo prefecture. White Oak is the only distillery there. Between that and some digging through public US shipping records I’m about 95% certain that I’ve got this right. Either way this little gem is exclusively sold by Trader Joe’s. And at a surprisingly low price given the rather steep prices fetched by Japanese whiskies off late.

Nose: A rowdy crowd of freshly cut thin slices of barely ripened green apples explodes out of the glass and noisily rattles about the whole place. Right after things calm down a bit as soon as a well-dressed group of dignified red apples enters the room in a much more quiet and orderly fashion. Between the two influences the nose evolves into a rather nice and interesting experience of, you probably guessed it, appleness. Oh, and someone recently polished all the wooden furniture with camphor hand lotion. (7.5 /10)

Palate: Wait, where did all the apples go? There’s a slice of spice across the middle of the tongue that seems to extend neither to the front nor the back. I don’t think I’ve ever had a whisky with a palate that sits sideways across the mouth like a stuck piece of 2×4. With the apples having left the party the polished wood furniture comes to the fore, slowly shifting from the nose’s hand lotion notes to a more untreated kind of oak that has a bit of a roughness to it. It even occasionally tries to bite you with tiny bitter teeth. What starts as spiciness eventually evolves into a continuous, wide-spread sensation of gentle sparkling on the surface of your tongue. (7.1/10)

Finish: This is where the oak lives. Almost dry, a lovely wood note that reveals brighter notes each time when breathing out. Here and there bitter spots come out of nowhere and fade again. There is even a subtle coating of smoke in the back of the throat that comes alive on every breath. For a bottle strength whisky this fills out surprisingly well over time though there’s, unsurprisingly, not a lot of chest action. Still a pleasant and mild warmth manages to settle it after a while. (7.8/10)

Balance: If it wasn’t for that bit of roughness on the palate and the occasional bitter edge biting you out of nowhere this would be pretty damn good. In many ways it still is, especially considering the rather low price for a Japanese whisky. I did not expect to but I really quite like this. (7.2/10)

Glenlivet, 12yo

Rating26.6/40
OriginScotland, Speyside, Livet
DistilleryGlenlivet
OwnerPernod Ricard via Chivas Brothers
StyleSingle Malt
CaskEuropean & American Oak
Strength40% (80 Proof)
WhiskybaseWhiskybase

The bog standardiest of bog standard single malts. But that shouldn’t stop anybody from occasionally enjoying a basic pleasant dram to ground themselves again after diving deep into high end stuff. No need to turn your nose up at this stuff. It’s cheap, it’s decent and you can find it just about anywhere.

Nose:  Apples. Apple pie, in fact, permeated by soft cinnamon and vanilla notes that, on occasion, shift gears into a more perfumy type mode. The apples are of one of the more tart varieties. Some faint acerbic notes of dry wood float about. Mild but pleasant. (6.5/10)

Palate: The autumn winds must have ripped some dry, old wooden shingles off the roof. The shingles didn’t get very far and quickly plopped into a nearby, small, inflatable pool next to a bare apple tree. Some apples had fallen into the stagnant water where they’re now listlessly bobbing up and down. (5.5/10)

Finish: The standing water has evaporated and all that’s left are memories of using those dried up, crumbly old shingles to grate a batch of sweet and wrinkly winter apples. (7.5/10)

Balance: The somewhat forgettable mid section is bookended by quite enjoyable notes on either side, which makes up for the sad dip and ultimately adds up to a pleasant experience. A perfectly fine daily drinker or a pleasant starter and warm-up dram for a serious evening of tasting whiskies. (7.1/10)

Glengyle Kilkerran Cask Strength, 8yo 2017

Rating28.3/40
OriginScotland, Campbeltown
DistilleryGlengyle
OwnerMitchell Family
SeriesKilkerran
EditionCask Strength
StyleSingle Malt
PeatedYes
CaskEx-Bourbon
Bottled2017
Bottles6,000
Strength55.7% (111.4 Proof)
WhiskybaseWhiskybase
Wine SearcherWine Searcher

This one-off small batch release of a younger and more aggressive expression adds another facet to Glengyle’s Kilkerran line of peated single malts, which already includes a number of “Work In Progress” as well as some heavily peated batch releases. Though the most commonly available bottling is probably the basic bottle strength 12 year old.

Nose:  A soft perfume-y smoke, more bubble bath than peat really. It jumps out and up at you but then, ultimately, it doesn’t amount to much more than a thin bubble pushing some perceptible notes with not a whole lot of substance behind it. Not unpleasant, but also not really a whole lot of… anything. (6.1/10)

Palate: Aha! Stuff! Finally! Pretty aggressive and bouncy in its youthfulness. A sharp hit of smoke, a bunch of loose staves of unripe wood clatter about noisily, but all of that dies down quickly and what’s left can’t quite make itself be heard after the ruckus of the initial impact. Later sips are very candy… probably why the kids were bouncing off the walls like that. (6.5/10)

Finish: The kids have tired out and settled down. Finally it’s a quiet and peaceful around here. Mouth and throat are left feeling empty from the sudden silence. There’s a few wooden toys left scattered about the floor that need tidying up. But someone’s got the fireplace going on the other side of the living room and there’s a welcoming heat beckoning us to come on over from deep inside in the chest, just above the diaphragm. This is nice. (8.5/10)

Balance: The finish makes me want to forgive the whisky for the underdeveloped nose and the irritating palate, but this is a review and I’ve got to be honest. Still that finish is nice to settle into. Don’t bother sniffing. Just sip, swish and swallow, then sit back and let out a deep breath. (7.2/10)

Glengyle Kilkerran Heavily Peated Batch #1, 2019

Rating27.0/40
OriginScotland, Campbeltown
DistilleryGlengyle
OwnerMitchell Family
SeriesPeat In Progress
EditionHeavily Peated Batch #1
StyleSingle Malt
PeatedYes (45 ppm)
Cask55% Ex-Bourbon, 45% Ex-Sherry
BottledFebruary 20th, 2019
Strength59.3% (118.6 Proof)
WhiskybaseWhiskybase

The first batch of a heavily peated, youthful expression under the Kilkerran label of Springbank’s young sister distillery, Glengyle, both owned by the Mitchell family. The stills used at Glengyle were acquired from the old Ben Wyvis distillery, which only survived for 12 years and closed in 1977.

Nose: Well… it’s peated, yes, but I’m not sure about it being peated heavily. There is a mild savory undercurrent of medium hot curry with potatoes and lentils. Later we’re looking at it through a large frame of unaged wooden. The peat is greener and more grassy than I would prefer. (6.5/10)

Palate: Aha! Here this whisky easily appears twice as peaty as the nose, for sure. But, again, there is his unripe green and grassy note throughout. And that unaged wood also arrives just a little later. (6.5/10)

Finish: Smoke and warmth mingle pleasantly. But once again those pesky green notes stick their head out here and there. Still, at least for me, this is the most rewarding aspect of this whisky. (7.5/10)

Balance: The whole thing feels very young to me (which, normally, is not at all a bad thing when it comes to peated whiskies) and I suspect it’s almost certainly younger than the 8 year old cask strength Kilkerran I’ve reviewed elsewhere on this site. I’m just not a huge fan though it’s certainly drinkable in a pinch. As much as I’m trying, I just can’t get past those green notes. (6.5/10)