Octomore 8.2 Whisky Review!

A wine cask-heavy 8-year old travel exclusive official Octomore, released back in 2017 - those years have passed quickly!

It may feel like the Octomore 8 Series has been relegated to the archives since the 11 Series has now appeared in Australia. This constant stream of new releases is getting hard to keep up with - both for the collectors and Octo-heads and also for the importers and distributors! The 8 Series was unleashed upon the world back in 2017, during my maiden voyage to Islay in fact,  the surprising news that three of the four bottlings were actually eight years old! That was a first for an Octomore series and a substantial age difference over the 'regular' five year olds, and aside from the 10-year old releases and unobtainium like Event Horizon and OBA, isn't likely to be beaten. In fact Bruichladdich went straight back to the standard ages with the 9 Series, which also carried lower ppm numbers and far-less explorative cask recipes, and thus didn't get anywhere near the attention that its predecessor enjoyed. Aside from the increased ages in the 8 Series, there was of course one special drawcard in the four bottlings - Octomore 8.3, which carried the highest ppm count of any Octomore at 309.1 ppm - on the malted barley, remember - and was the 8-series release that stayed at five years of age. Naturally release received the lion's share of the attention, but the other releases in this series were also very good - 8.1 is still my favourite _.1 Octomore since the mighty 5.1, and while the virgin oak-influenced 8.4 wasn't as "out there" as the ground-breaking 7.4 it was very tasty regardless. While every bottling series in the world of whisky will always have highs and lows, I'd have to say that the 8-series was one of those rare cases where all of the bottlings were definitely winners. 

One of the four bottlings had proven a little harder to track down, however. As it always is, since the _.2 releases have been "travel exclusive" - only available from duty free stores - from 6.2 up until 11.2 at least, and we can thank COVID for that recent change in approach since the world's airports and ports aren't what they once were, and won't be anytime soon. Let's hope this global tragedy sees a few distilleries and brands re-think their approach to duty free bottlings, hopefully towards making them more readily available without the need for international jet-setting. Bruichladdich's Australian distributors have actually done that with the Laddie Eight that is normally travel exclusive, with it replacing the entry level Laddie Classic in many stores. And I'd argue that the delicious Eight is a significantly better deal, so that's certainly a win for the 'laddie fans! The _.2 releases have always stood apart from the rest of the Octomore range. That's partly due to the availability of course, but also due to their maturation - mostly due to wine casks being involved to varying degrees. The first of these, the legendary 2.2 Orpheus, was finished - Additional Cask Enhanced in Bruichladdich-speak - in Chateau Petrus red wine casks, while the highly-regarded 4.2 Comus was finished in Sauternes dessert wine casks, followed by the Cognac / Brandy cask-finished 6.2. Then the delicious and wildly-unappreciated 7.2 arrived, which was a mix of ex-bourbon and ex-Syrah red wine casks, matured separately and married together rather than a cask finish. 8.2 is much more complex, so it'll be covered in the next paragraph, while 9.2 was finished in second-fill red wine casks with the use of second-fill being a first for a _.2 Octomore. While tasty, in my opinion it is or rather was the low-point in the _.2 Octomore history. But the sauternes cask finished and 8-year old 10.2 was the redeemer that also broke the mould, since while easily the least-peaty Octomore I've tasted to date, is an absolutely delicious whisky in it's own right. 

My first encounter with 8.2 was on Islay, in the Laddie Shop at the Distillery, and it had only just been released - so recently in fact that there was only one bottle available to taste, and it was kept hidden away from the thirsty punters until the bottling hall had caught up. I must admit here that my memory of this particular dram is a little hazy - after a distillery tour and warehouse tasting, followed by a couple of other samples in the shop including the hand-filled Valinch bottlings and the delicious 7.2 for posterity's sake, adding in the sheer emotion and excitement of the first visit to these hallowed grounds, so I had not given 8.2 the attention that it deserved. But now, nearly four years later, and thanks to a generous sample from a fellow whisky nerd, I'm able to right that wrong! This 8-year old travel exclusive Octomore has had a very complicated and very wine-heavy upbringing. With the barley peated to 167 ppm and the spirit distilled back in 2008, the spirit was filled in to three different types of wine cask: French Mourvedre, an intense, tannin-heavy and peppery 'full-bodied' red wine, un-named Austrian sweet wines, and French Sauternes sweet wines. The spirit spent around six years in those three varieties of wine cask, before being married together and finished / additional cask enhanced for a further two years in another type of wine cask: Amarone, which is a dry Italian red wine. So that's basically six years in three different types of wine cask, and another two years in a fourth type of wine cask. I told you it was wine-cask heavy! Bottling strength on this one was 58.4%, with a generous 36,000 bottles released, and no chill filtration or added colouring involved of course. The sample for this review came from a sample swap with a generous fellow-whisky nerd. Let's do it!

Octomore 8.2, 8-years old, 58.4%. Islay, Scotland.

167 ppm barley, distilled in 2008. Matured in French Mourvedre, Austrian sweet wine and French Sauterne sweet wine casks for 6 years, finished in Italian Amarone red wine casks for 2 years. Travel exclusive, 36,000 bottles. Non-chill filtered, natural colour.

Colour: Deep copper. 

Nose: Smoked bacon, black pepper and stone fruit. Sweet apricots & nectarines in syrup, with a couple of sour cherries and a few peach skins thrown in for good measure. Buttery over-cooked pancakes with smoky maple syrup. A little spicy oak & green chilli heat. 

Texture: Heavy weight. Very rich, oily & syrupy. Lightly ashy and a touch of heat. 

Taste: Sweet & smoky entry with that smoked bacon and black pepper, then that syrupy stone fruit comes through to soften things up. That's followed quickly by an ashy, earthy peat, green chilli heat, black pepper & wood spices, plus blow-torched orange rind. 

Finish: Long length. The green chilli heat & ashy peat carry through, then the black pepper with a touch of astringency. Torched orange rind again, then the stone fruit in syrup with the smoky maple syrup sweetness, and warm, spicy toasted oak. 

Score: 4 out of 5. 

Notes: Delicious. It's different, and it's slightly hot, but it's packed with flavour, and the texture is wonderful - even with that slight heat. And to be fair, Octomores are rarely gentle! In 8.2 the peat & smoke are tamed slightly by the fruit and syrupy sweetness, while the chilli and oak spices are still assertive, but it all works very well together. There was something special about the 8-series of Octomores if you ask me, and the 8.2 shows a sweeter and fruitier side to the foursome. All four bottlings did set the bar quite high, and subsequent series' have certainly had some big shoes to fill! While there have been some excellent stand-out bottlings in those more recent series', and while I'm yet to taste any of the 11-series bottlings, I'd say that the 8-series was a rare case of all four releases being absolute winners!

Untasted, I was a little wary of the amount of wine casks that were involved in 8.2's maturation - even more so since it had spent eight years in those casks rather than the usual five. But I should've known better, because Bruichladdich are basically the masters of wine cask maturation, and Octomore tends to work very well with them. It's just a shame that most of these extra-unconventional _.2 bottlings are exclusive to travel retail / duty free stores. Octomore and Bruichladdich fans are being deprived of a different, but no less essential, aspect of Octomore and Port Charlotte, especially given the current global situation. The distillery did take steps to correct this with the recent 11.2, which was sold directly from their website - although neither DHL or Australian Customs are shy about taking advantage of those situations! As for these older bottlings, I suppose the advantage is that they're likely to still be available from some Australian airports, despite being bottled a few years ago now. So maybe that's an advantage? We'll have to wait for a certain virus to finally bugger off to find out...

Cheers!

Tamdhu Batch Strength Whisky Review!

Tamdhu has recently popped up in Australia, and at very reasonable prices from a certain large retailer. So this cask strength, sherry cask-matured example was hard to pass-up - and if memory serves it's my first dram from this distillery!

At first glance, Tamdhu (Gaelic for "little dark hill" and pronounced "tam-doo") seems like many of the lesser-known Speyside distilleries where most of their production goes to blended whiskies - it's not a very interesting one. In fact even the distillery's own promotional material puts almost 100% of its focus on the casks use for maturation, with almost no mention of the distillery itself or the spirit that it produces. But once you delve a little deeper, there is actually a little history there. Founded in Knockando, east of the town of Craigellachie in 1897 by none other than William Grant himself, it was designed by famous distillery architect Charles Doig, who was responsible for the "pagoda" roofs (real name Doig Ventilators) that have become synonymous with whisky distilleries in Scotland - although they seem to be missing from this distillery! It wasn't exactly smooth-sailing from there, with the distillery closing in 1927 while under the control of Edrington-predecessor Highland Distillers, and staying that way for twenty years. Soon after re-opening the distillery's original floor maltings were replaced with ten Saladin malting boxes, which explains the lack of Doig ventilator / 'pagoda' roofs. Saladin boxes are large open-topped containers that can hold over 20 tons of barley each, and use a mechanical system of pulley-driven screws to turn the barley as it germinates, thus cutting out most of the manual labour from the malting process. Tamdhu was among the first to adopt these Saladin boxes, and put them to good use by supplying 100% of its own malt requirements, and some of Edrington's other distilleries as well - notably Highland Park and Glenrothes. This also meant that Tamdhu was for a long time one of the few distilleries of the modern-era to supply 100% of its own barley requirements in-house, although that ended with the most recent change of ownership, when the maltings were decommissioned and the barley externally sourced from commerical malting companies, as is unfortunately the modern way. 

Edrington closed Tamdhu again in 2009, before it was purchased by Ian McLeod Distillers in 2012 - who also own Glengoyne Distillery, and produce a multitude of blended whiskies and independent bottlings such as Isle of Skye, Smokehead, Six Isles and Sheep Dip. They're also now the owners of the mighty Rosebank, which they are bringing back to life after its closure back in 1993. Since Tamdhu changed hands in 2012 the distillery has been rebranded with more emphasis put on a larger range of single malts, along with new updated packaging, a new visitor's centre and additional warehouses. Their current annual capacity is around three million litres of spirit, produced in nine wooden washbacks and six copper pot stills, and stored in a mix of dunnage, racked and palletized warehouses. While the decommissioning of the maltings facility is a shame, Tamdhu that was distilled prior to 2009 - so a good portion of the bottlings that are available today - will have been distilled from this in-house malted barley, so it's not out of reach just yet. These days the distillery's main point of difference is that they exclusively use sherry casks to mature their spirit, mainly of the ex-Oloroso sherry variety, including both American and European oak. The current range of single malts include a 12-year old entry-level bottling, a limited release 15-year old, and the NAS 'Batch Strength', along with some scarcer limited releases. There are still quite a few independent bottlings around, mostly from the likes of Gordon & MacPhail and Cadenheads, although that's likely to dry up after the change in ownership. 

The Tamdhu that we're looking at today is one of many non-age statement, cask strength sherry cask-matured Speyside single malts that you'll find on Australian shelves these days - think along the lines of Glengoyne Cask Strength, Glenfarclas 105, Glendronach Cask Strength and Aberlour A'Bunadh, with Glenrothes and Macallan also dabbling in the same territory at times. These are all batch releases, with the number of bottles per batch being undisclosed, and using different varieties of sherry casks - or more accurately, sherry seasoned casks, usually refill. This Tamdhu is no different, although they do state that a "high proportion" of the Oloroso sherry casks used were first-fill casks, and that both American and European oak casks have been used. Based on the smell and taste though, I'm going to guesstimate that the majority were refill American oak sherry casks. This bottling is from Batch 004, bottled in 2019, which was the first to be officially imported into Australia and was bottled at 57.8% ABV. It's non-chill filtered and naturally coloured, which also applies to the aforementioned 15-year old. This Batch Strength bottling is priced very well in Australia at $114 AUD, although it's only available from a certain large retailer which has directly imported the brand for its own distribution. That price does put this Tamdhu in line with the likes of the Glenfarclas and Glengoyne options mentioned above, and quite a way below the current pricing of the Aberlour and Glendronach examples - both of which are now sitting north of $150 AUD. The Tamdhu Batch Strength has been getting quite a bit of attention since its arrival, and it makes for a very interesting comparison between those other high strength 'sherry bomb' options. Time to get into it, then!

Tamdhu Batch Strength, Batch 004. NAS, 57.8%. Speyside, Scotland.

Bottled 2019, matured in ex-Oloroso sherry casks of both American and European oak. Non-chill filtered, natural colour.

Colour: Medium amber. 

Nose: Apricots & vanilla cream, with sweet nectarine and white peach in syrup on the side. Spun brown sugar toffee, white pepper, clove and ginger spice. A touch of orange zest, vanilla fudge and some fresh oak. A bit of nippy heat still there as well. 

Texture: Medium weight. Syrupy and sweet, still a bit of heat here too. 

Taste: More syrupy sweet stone fruit - nectarine, peach and apricot again. Fresh ginger chunks, vanilla cream and punchy spices - clove and pepper again plus some dried red chilli flakes here. Charred oak and that brown sugar toffee in the background. 

Finish: Medium length. More vanilla cream and charred oak, a nice touch of coffee grounds. Then spirit-y heat - even 3-ish months after opening. It does fade though, leaving more dried fruits now - currants and dried orange slices. Toffee again too. 

Score: 3 out of 5. 

Notes: It's a tasty whisky, but it's hot in places and bordering on harsh on occasion - particularly on the finish. And this bottle has been open for more than three months, with the level being below the shoulder almost the whole time, so it's had plenty of time to breathe and settle down. And it has calmed down a little, but there are still flashes of rawness at times. It actually feels like it's been rushed, which is a shame, but it's not uncommon in this style of high ABV non-age statement sherry cask / "sherry bomb" scene. Glenfarclas 105 in particular can be downright harsh & fire-y in the right batch - or rather in the wrong one! And even contemporary batches of A'Bunadh can be very hot at times. While it's at the top of the price scale, I still think Glendronach's NAS Cask Strength series are the pick of this bunch - but I'd have to suggest that you skip Batch 7, unfortunately it was the low point of the batches that I've tried to date. I'm yet to try its replacement in Batch 8, but from the reports I've seen things seem to have picked up again to where they left off with Batch 6, which is a relief. 

This Tamdhu is certainly a pleasant experience though, and the value for money is commendable - this bottle is around $40-50 AUD cheaper than the Glendronach I mentioned above. Luckily there's still plenty of flavour alongside those (temporary) flashes of spirit-y heat, with delicious sweet fruit, vanilla and bright sweetness showing through nicely. I still think it was mostly American oak casks in the mix (but all ex-Oloroso, remember). And the stone fruit on the nose and palate are the highlights of the show. If you're a fan of these high ABV, rough & ready sherry cask whiskies then this one won't disappoint - in fact it's sweeter and brighter than most of it's stablemates. 

Cheers!

Daftmill Winter 2007 Whisky Review!

My first review of Scotland's smallest whisky distillery, which is sadly impossible to find in Australia.

Daftmill is a relatively young distillery located in the upper reaches of the booming Lowlands whisky region, roughly an hour's drive north of Edinburgh near the town of Cupar, Fife. I say relatively young because the distillery was actually built in 2003 and began distilling in late 2005, which puts it at roughly the same age as Islay's Kilchoman. But Daftmill waited until mid-2018 to release their first single malt whisky, at 12-years of age - which is positively ancient for any distillery's first release! This tiny farm distillery is owned by two brothers, Fraser & Ian Cuthbert, who decided to start keeping a small amount of their barley crops aside for use in their own distillery. That makes this one of the few 'farm distilleries' in the world that is growing their own barley on site, although the barley is sent away to Alloa to be malted before the milling and mashing takes place back in Fife. This really is a tiny distillery, since they only produce for two three-month seasons per year, one in winter and one in summer, in order to fit in with the peak farming seasons. Combined with just two washbacks and two small copper pot stills, that gives the distillery a capacity of roughly 90,000 litres of spirit per year, with an actual production of around 20,000 litres - which makes even Edradour look massive in comparison! That's closer to the output of a distillery here in Australia, and is absolutely tiny in Scotland - to give you a frame of reference, Bruichladdich has a production capacity of around 1,000,000 litres of spirit per year, while monster Glenfiddich hits around 13-14,000,000 litres with plans afoot for further expansion. The seasonal production at Daftmill would've been much more common in the early days of distillation in Scotland, since the farm distilleries had to fit in with the farming seasons that provided the bulk of their livelihoods, and used the leftover grain from their fields in their spirits.  

This very small production has had an unfortunate effect on the  worldwide pricing and availability of Daftmill's whisky. Despite being distributed by relatively large company Berry Bros & Rudd, there is no Australian importer for this much-lauded Lowlands single malt, so the closest option at the moment is Whisky Galore in Christchurch, New Zealand, who receive tiny allocations directly from Britain, and to their credit also keep the pricing quite reasonable. Even if you are quick enough and lucky enough, when coupled with shipping across the Tasman and the ever-looming greed and malice of the Customs department here in Australia, that price does escalate, and the same goes for personal imports direct from the UK - again, if you're quick enough and lucky enough. Some liquor stores in the UK have kept their pricing in the rational realm, while some have taken advantage of the huge demand and tiny supply and have increased their profit margins. But we can't really blame those resellers, because the secondary market for Daftmill, in the European auction sites, eBay and both licensed and unlicensed flippers, is disgusting. While the original retail pricing in the UK ranges from roughly 85-125 pounds depending on the bottling and cask type, which is not cheap to begin with, on the secondary market you're looking at 200-450 pounds, and even beyond in many cases. The buy-in point for a vatted release (as in, not a single cask) at 46% in the recent auctions tends to be around 160 pounds, and that's not including the buyer's premium, handling/storage fees, shipping charges and local customs charges. That's a massive leap over the original pricing, and just goes to show what a massive demand there is for this tiny operation's single malt, and I can't see it changing any time soon. 

I must admit that having watched this unfold over the last couple of years, plus the lack of an Australian distributor, I had resigned myself to missing out on tasting any of Daftmill's whisky for the foreseeable future, if ever, and had become a little jaded about the whole situation. But thankfully, a good friend was lucky enough to nab a bottle from the aforementioned store in New Zealand, and he was also generous enough to share it! Daftmill's wash is fermented for 72-96 hours, which is quite a long period, followed by slow distillation in those small stills that promote reflux, and the resulting spirit is very much suited to the expected style of the Lowlands region, with a light, delicate, floral profile - despite being double-distilled rather than triple-distilled, comparisons have even been drawn to the mighty Rosebank - that seems to show a great deal of maturity at relatively young ages, which is a sign of both good quality spirit and the use of good quality casks. The release that we're looking at today is the Winter 2007 batch, meaning it was distilled somewhere in November-February 2007. This bottling was drawn from six first-fill ex-bourbon barrels, and was bottled in 2020 at 46% ABV, with an outturn of 1,685 bottles. Rather confusingly there are multiple releases of each batch, i.e. multiple different releases labelled Winter 2007, and there don't seem to be designated batch numbers, but on the back label you'll find the individual cask numbers that made up the vatting for that particular release. In this case they were 40-42/2007 and 44-46/2007, making this the Winter 2007 batch for Asia, which makes sense since the bottle was sourced from New Zealand. All of Daftmill's single malt is non-chill filtered and naturally coloured, and most releases to date have been matured in first-fill casks of either ex-bourbon or ex-sherry varieties. Shall we?

Daftmill Winter 2007 (Asia Release), bottled 2020, 46%. Fife, Scotland.

Distilled 2007, matured in first-fill bourbon barrels, bottled 2020. Cask numbers 40-42 & 44-46/2007. 1,685 bottles. Non-chill filtered, natural colour.

Colour: Gold.

Nose: Grassy, floral, sweet & sour. Fresh cut grass, touch of natural yoghurt, cream cheese & lemon juice. With more air the grass becomes dry and the yoghurt fades, leaving lemon icing / frosting, vanilla custard and a little charred oak. 

Texture: Rich, oily & buttery, but also delicate and floral. Very easy drinking. No heat at all. 

Taste: Dry grass and cream cheese again. Sweeter vanilla and less citrus here. Hints of sweet dried flowers (pot purri), light wood spices - sandalwood & cinnamon. Some buttery fresh oak and a touch of dried leafy herbs. 

Finish: Short-medium length, but tapers off quickly - there's the delicacy we were talking about! A touch of spirit here, but not at all in a hot or harsh way, rather a pleasantly light & floral spirit. Hints of that buttery oak and dry grass, a touch of honey and those dried sweet flowers again, followed by subtle vanilla and lemon cream cheese icing / frosting.

Score: 4 out of 5. 

Notes: Delicious stuff. It's aired nicely since that initial opening, with the cask influence fading nicely it's now showing a great balance. Is it "the new" Rosebank? I suppose I can see a couple of similarities if I squint, but they're two different spirits - double distilled vs. triple distilled, and old refill casks vs. young first-fill casks, plus different eras of production, so it's a moot point really. And they aren't competing with each other anyway, both have plenty of merit, and both do stand out among most of their Lowland brethren - some of which are nothing short of forgettable. Although this is my one and only experience with Daftmill so far, the quality is evident. Despite essentially being a part-time operation, they obviously aren't taking any shortcuts - although we could already tell that by the fact that they waited twelve years before releasing their first whisky! 

I can see the Daftmill hype being justified at the original retail pricing, but not at the ridiculous secondary / auction pricing. If you can get a bottle at the RRP, I would suggest grabbing it. But if you can't, don't pay the current rates at auction and retail or private flipping. Paying 2-3 times the original retail for anything that is essentially a current release is just crazy. Hopefully that situation will calm down over time - hopefully! But there's only one way that it will stop, and that's if people stop buying those bottles and stop paying those prices. Then the people that are buying these bottles and immediately putting them up for sale might actually have to keep them and drink them. Oh, the horror!

Cheers!

Whisky and Chocolate - Breaking the Peated Perfection mould?

Something a little different this time around! An exercise in pairing whisky and food, which in all honesty is something I don't do very often - I tend to prefer one or the other! But if the situation calls for it I would typically go for cheese, charcuterie or basic savoury bite-size items over anything else. My wife enjoys (read: is obsessed with) preparing massive platters of that sort of thing on the rare occasions where we entertain at home, and they work well in that type of social setting and help to fill the gaps between drams, when the food actually tends to be 'paired' with a glass of water! The whisky does tend to be the attention-hog in these social situations, while the food takes on more of a supporting role. 

Now that's not to say that the two can't work in tandem, I just don't venture far down that road in most situations. I have attended a number of tastings where carefully-selected small dishes have worked brilliantly with the paired whisky, where the result was greater than the sum of it's parts - which is the goal behind pairing anything with anything! I do recommend trying basic pairings such as fresh oysters with peated bourbon cask Islay / Island whisky like Laphroaig 10 or Talisker 10, paté and crackers or oat cakes with Campbeltown whiskies like Springbank 10 or Glen Scotia 15, crumbly blue cheese with peated sherry cask-led whiskies like Kilchoman Sanaig or Ardbeg Uigeadail (preferably the more sherry-influenced batches), and strong cheddar cheese with peated whiskies like Caol Ila 12 or Port Charlotte 10. I also steer away from creamy soft cheeses, since anything that will coat your palate to that extent will interfere with the whisky that follows it! You'll notice that all of those pairing suggestions are savoury, which is what I would normally lean towards, with the exception of the occasional piece of supermarket dark chocolate - often with a sherry cask whisky like Glendronach 18 or Benromach 10.

But variety is the spice of life, and the opportunity recently presented itself to stir things up and take a closer look at whisky pairings with a specific type of food - gourmet artisanal chocolates! I was intrigued, since this is not something I've ever focussed on, and it made for an exciting challenge! But I must confess that it wasn't actually my idea. This little adventure was the brain-child of chocolatier and chocoholic Krsna Rajalingam, founder and owner of Basik Chocolates, a small gourmet producer based in my home-turf of Brisbane, Australia. Within a couple of minutes of first meeting Krsna, it's clear that he's absolutely obsessed with his craft. His immense passion and knowledge for all things cocoa-based is infectious, and since I'd never properly considered the science and skill that goes in to producing chocolate of this level, it was quite the eye-opener! Krsna's idea was to find whisky options for pairing with his latest chocolate tasting pack, consisting of four different bite-sized bonbons (filled round chocolates), two of each variety, which was created partly with Valentine's Day in mind. Hang on a second, did I just get Valentine's Day chocolates from a man that I met at a dimly-lit whisky bar? Hmm... Oh well, I'm OK with it! 

These are not just any chocolates, either. You obviously won't find Basik's creations on the shelves at Coles, but they're worth hunting down! Have a read of the four flavours that were in this February tasting pack - finger lime & pink peppercorns, raspberry & rosewater turkish delight, vanilla bean with mango & chilli, and cherry couverture - a finer grade of chocolate with a higher percentage of cocoa butter - with coconut caramel. And rather than relying on my lame attempts at photography, have a look at their Instagram page ( @basikchocolates ) to see how beautifully these little flavour-bombs are presented! No shortcuts are taken at any step of the process - top quality ingredients, sourced locally where possible, and there's an obvious meticulous attention to detail that really separates these pieces from what you've seen before. These chocolates are purposely designed to combine different and sometimes unexpected flavours, without being unnecessarily complicated. And they made for a very interesting challenge when it came to finding and recommending whiskies to taste alongside! 

I'm going to offer three different whisky recommendations with each variety of chocolate, all followed by a brief explanation. The whiskies are mainly Scotch, since they tend to be the most widely available, and for the most part I'm trying to look at more readily-available and reasonably-priced whiskies to include a larger audience. That said, the three recommendations will be: my main personal pick, then a similar alternative that I think should work just as well, but then a 'deep cut' - a less available whisky that I think will add an extra level of complexity to the pairing, all followed by a brief explanation. These are all based on my personal opinion, based on trying the chocolate first, and then sipping the whisky separately. We all have different palates and different tastes, but with any luck you'll get a general idea of the angle that I'm approaching this adventure with, and hopefully you'll be inspired to try something different in future - which is the name of the game! Basik's February pack is already sold out, so there are no ulterior motives here, but come along for the ride, and perhaps look for some similar combinations next time you think about having some chocolate with your whisky! 

Chocolate Number 1 - Raspberry & Rosewater "Turkish Delight"!

This one was quite the challenge! In the end I narrowed it down to two possibilities - unpeated ex-bourbon casks, or unpeated wine casks. The chocolate here is very rich, but the raspberry is quite strong and quite tart, so it balances out - the rosewater is subtle and is around the edges, with the crispy shell adding some crunch. 

Whisky Pairing: Gordon & MacPhail Tormore Cote Rotie (red wine finish). The Tormore is a grassy, fruity and drying whisky with subtle chocolate and berry flavours from the wine cask finish, and it adds a little spice and dryness to the rich ganache and helps balance that tart raspberry. Possibly could've gone with something that had a more overt cask influence here, like the Starward! 

Alternative: Starward Nova a.k.a Wine Cask. 

Deep Cut: Bruichladdich Single Cask Sweet French Wine (Micro Provenance #1275). Nailed this one, I have to say! It's a big (60%), rich whisky with a little punch to it, but it's also quite sweet, so it has balanced our the raspberry tartness very well, and the rich chocolate is perfect alongside that malty, rich, punchy sweet whisky. Don't worry, I'll be reviewing this whisky separately soon!

Chocolate Number 2 - Finger Lime & Pink Peppercorns!

Lime and pepper? Sounds like the perfect accompaniment to an ex-bourbon cask Islay whisky to me! The chocolate is quite rich again, but it's the finger lime that is the dominant note here - acidic, subtly sweet lime, almost cleansing, but it's like citrus caviar that bursts on the tongue and lasts quite a while. Very nice!

Whisky Pairing: Kilchoman Machir Bay. Sweet citrus, relatively soft earthy peat and subtle coastal & salty flavours - just what the doctor ordered here. The combination is quite balanced actually, with a peat smoke exhale from the Kilchoman and the chocolate and especially that finger lime kicking on for quite some time. The winning pairing so far!

Alternative: Ardbeg 10. 

Deep Cut: Ardbeg Supernova (2009). Should've called that a very deep cut! Yes, I pulled out a very big gun for this one - but the lime & pepper in the chocolate told me that I just had to do it, because alongside the massive peat in this Ardbeg is a fantastic lime & black pepper that has become something I now search for in every Ardbeg - and seldom find, especially to this degree. A Supernova of flavour!

Chocolate Number 3 - Vanilla Bean, Mango & Chilli!

Now, when it comes to combining any spirits with chilli or any spicy food, I'm generally not a fan. I think they clash, both on the nose and on the palate, and each makes the other more harsh and in some cases just unpleasant. But with only a mild, warm chilli combined with extremely high quality white chocolate, vanilla bean and rich, acidic mango - all of which are cooling - this works beautifully! 

Whisky Pairing: Bruichladdich Laddie Eight. Right on the line of the chilli boosting the alcohol a little too much, but the 'laddie is 50% ABV after all, so that's probably my fault! A slightly lower strength whisky like the Glen Scotia shouldn't have that problem, but the Laddie Eight works very nicely with the flavours regardless. That borderline-farmyard malty freshness, honey & lemon are delicious with creamy white chocolate that is not too sweet.  

Alternative: Glen Scotia 15. 

Deep Cut: Bowmore Tempest (cask strength ex-bourbon casks) Batch 6. A delicious vanilla, citrus & tropical fruit-led Bowmore. Despite the higher ABV (54.9%) it does seem to work slightly better with the chilli, which is a surprise, although the light peat could be helping with that. I really miss the Tempest series!

Chocolate Number 4 - Cherry Couverture & Coconut Caramel!

In my mind this one was screaming out for a sherry cask or wine cask whisky, but with the added curveball of the coconut. Sweet and light to start with, then the cherry builds as does the coconut - almost reminiscent of coconut ice (fudge), or even a white christmas slice (white chocolate with coconut & fruit), but with far, far better quality chocolate.

Whisky Pairing: Benromach 10. Savoury / earthy, malty and lightly peaty, which I thought would work nicely in this pairing, and it does, but it seems to cancel out the sweetness in the chocolate as well. I love Benromach 10 on it's own, and it goes well with plain dark chocolate, but a sweeter sherry cask whisky would probably work a little better with this chocolate, or perhaps just an unpeated one. 

Alternative: Glendronach 18. 

Deep Cut: Ardbeg Blaaack Committee Release. OK, this is an excellent pairing! Much higher peat level and stronger ABV than the Benromach of course, but it's the sweet wine cask finish in the Blaaack that sticks out and makes this the winner - sweet cherry & blackberry, with creamy vanilla before the peat comes through. Peat on the exhale again, but with coconut & cherry chocolate still on the palate. Delicious!

And the winner is... Yes, Kilchoman Machir Bay with the Finger Lime & Pink Peppercorns bonbon! There was more citrus in the chocolate than I expected, but it does work - lime juice caviar & rich chocolate with a sweet, gently peaty & coastal Kilchoman. That combination is a winner! I suppose the lesson here is, don't look past peat when it comes to food pairings, whether sweet or savoury. Is there anything peat can't do???

I hope you enjoyed that little voyage folks - it's a bit of a departure from the norm, but if you didn't, don't worry the regular whisky reviews will be back next week - my waistline can't support many more of these sessions! Thanks very much to Krsna for getting in touch with this little challenge, and also for giving me chocolates for Valentine's Day! I highly recommend checking out Basik Chocolate's very high quality creations in future - they're not easily forgotten, and they work brilliantly with our beloved whisky!

Cheers!

Ledaig 12yo Cask Strength (Signatory Vintage) Whisky Review!

A big, dirty, unapologetic whisky from a single refill sherry butt, made by one of the kings of big, dirty, unapologetic whisky!

Ledaig is the peated whisky produced by Tobermory Distillery on the Isle of Mull, off Scotland's west coast. While the standard range of the 10-year old and 18-year old Ledaigs are very enjoyable whiskies - and the 10-year old in particular offers excellent value for money - this whisky really comes into it's own when bottled at cask strength, and even more so when it's spent some time in sherry casks. Tobermory does offer a decent range of higher strength bottlings, often finished or matured in unusual cask types, but they're very hard to find in Australia. More like impossible, actually. So where do we turn for our Ledaig fixes? Straight to the independent bottlers, of course! Bottlers like Gordon & MacPhail, North Star, Cadenhead's and many other smaller companies release quite a lot of Ledaig, and along with Caol Ila it would have to be one of the more numerous independently bottled peated whiskies. The unusual thing there is that while Caol Ila is a large workhorse of a distillery, owned by Diageo and mostly producing spirit that is destined for blended whiskies, Tobermory is a small distillery - capable of less than a quarter of Caol Ila's annual production capacity - owned by a smaller corporation (Distell) that isn't quite as prevalent in blended whiskies. Adding to that is the fact that Tobermory produces two different spirits (and also a gin, but we'll ignore that); an unpeated spirit labelled under the distillery name, and peated spirit labelled as Ledaig, so there can't be a huge amount of their peated spirit leaving their four pot stills every year. 

Ledaig, meaning "safe haven" in Gaelic, was actually the distillery's original name, and is also the name given to the town of Tobermory's harbour where the distillery is located. Like their Distell stablemates Deanston and Bunnahabhain they've stepped up their game over the last decade or so, with the move to a minimum bottling strength of 46.3% ABV, and never chill filtering or artificially colouring their single malts for a more natural presentation. They're also releasing a multitude of exotic cask finishings from the likes of wine casks, less common varieties of sherry casks, and a number of distillery exclusives and even hand-filled cask strength bottlings. I was lucky enough to pick up two brilliant examples from Tobermory during my visit back in 2018, which were a 10-year old Bordeaux wine cask Tobermory and a 14-year old Oloroso cask Ledaig - both were exceptional, and I wish I'd bought multiples! Unfortunately most of Tobermory's production is matured on the Scottish mainland, since the original warehouses were sold off and converted into apartments during the distillery's tumultuous past - more than half of it's 200+ year history has been spent with the doors closed. There are still some casks maturing on-site in a small 'warehouse', most of which are understandably reserved for older, more limited releases and the distillery exclusive bottlings since cask space is at such a premium. It must be said though that their other bottlings don't seem to suffer too drastically from this geographical relocation, possibly since the spirit itself is so powerful - some might even call it pungent - to begin with. 

This particular Ledaig is a 12-year old single cask bottling from Signatory Vintage, so it will most likely have been matured at Edradour Distillery north of Edinburgh. It has been fully matured in a single refill Oloroso sherry butt (500-litre cask) and was bottled at a cask strength of 59.8%. It's still readily available in Australia and has been for some time now, selling for around $250 AUD, which although verging on the high-side is not unreasonable for a cask strength single cask. Signatory have an excellent track record with sherry cask Ledaigs, based on a run of excellent 10-11 year old first-fill sherry casks that were released a few years ago. This bottling is a refill cask though, so there's going to be less sherry influence and more spirit / distillery character showing through - don't take that to mean that it won't be as flavoursome as those first-fill casks though; Ledaig is not a shy spirit, and it's almost never short on character! In fact with the right spirit and the right distillery refill casks often work better than equivalent first-fill casks would, since they allow more of the distillery character to show through and aren't as assertive. There are plenty of examples (usually single casks from various independent bottlers) where a first-fill sherry cask will overwhelm the spirit completely, even when filled with heavily peated spirit and bottled at a relatively young age, which will result in a generic 'sherry bomb' that has lost most of it's character. And that's always a sad thing to see / smell / taste. But it's safe to say that will not going to be the case here!

Signatory Vintage Ledaig 12-year old, refill sherry cask, 59.8%. Mull, Scotland.

Single cask #700555, refill Oloroso sherry butt. Distilled 6/2007, bottled 2/2020. 604 bottles. Non-chill filtered, natural colour. 

Colour: Pale amber. 

Nose: Lovely dirty Ledaig. Lanolin balm (sheep's wool oil), muddy farmyards, machine oil and fried greasy bacon. Sweet dried berries and stewed stone fruit, but served in chilli oil rather than juice or syrup! Muddy, dank peat with a little spirit-y alcohol nip - but Ledaig isn't known for it's gentleness! 

Texture: Medium weight. Very oily, and not as dirty or funky as the nose suggested. A little heat, but it works. 

Taste: Sweet stone fruit - peach and nectarine, and still in chilli oil, with some black pepper thrown in. Ashy hot smoke, more lanolin balm / oil, and a touch of that fried greasy bacon. Yes there's a little heat, but it's not enough to be distracting. 

Finish: Long length. Spiced sweet caramel (spiced with cloves), chilli oil and ashy hot smoke again. Muddy, dank peat, and a little spicy & nutty oak in the background. A touch of dark chocolate and some old rubber, and muddy peat 'til the end.  

Score: 4 out of 5. 

Notes: A great Ledaig that shows more of the distillery character and spirit character than the first-fill cask maturations / finishes tend to. And there's plenty of sweetness, farmyard-y funk and dank-ness on show - like Port Charlotte's northern cousin, who's had a more modest upbringing! This Signatory bottling has been well-chosen to show the typical Ledaig style, but in a more balanced fashion that it often is - balanced between spirit & cask, that is. Particularly compared to some of the official bottlings that have had more complicated cask regimens thrust upon them - although that often works to great effect as well, Ledaig is quite versatile! If you're a fan of this dirty-yet-sweet, rough-around-the-edges style of whisky, this single cask will be right up your alley. Plenty of punch and plenty of character, and the bottle has sweetened, relaxed and opened-up nicely with a decent amount of breathing time. 

Well done to The Whisky Company for getting their hands on a good amount of this cask. It's easier to get a hold of than the cask strength official bottlings are (in Australia), and it's always hard to go past the Signatory Cask Strength 'decanter style' bottles - although pretty as they are, they're painful to pour from!

Cheers!

Caol Ila Natural Cask Strength (2008 bottling) Whisky Review!

A blast from the (recent) past Caol Ila that'll stand alongside any of the cask strength Islay monsters, and it'll give plenty of them a wake-up call!

If you ask me, the rock-solid workhorse distillery that is Caol Ila still doesn't get enough time in the limelight. While contributing to blended whiskies will always be its bread & butter, the single malts - or more often, new make spirits destined for warehouses on the mainland - that make the climb up the hill to the ferry terminal at Port Askaig have earned their spots amongst the Islay greats. But the lack of limelight is understandable, since most novice or casual whisky drinkers will have only seen the standard entry-level 12-year old official bottling from this distillery, or perhaps the Moscatel wine-finished Distiller's Edition if they've taken a closer look at the right shelf. When a whisky drinker is looking to step up in ABV and is searching for a more natural presentation - as in non-chill filtered and naturally coloured - and Caol Ila takes their fancy, they turn to the independent bottlers. And that's finally where they're spoiled for choice. Cask strength bottlings from the likes of Gordon & MacPhail, Elements of Islay, Port Askaig (albeit undisclosed), Signatory Vintage, Adelphi and North Star are well worth hunting down. But what if you want to stay with official bottlings from the distillery owners, Diageo, and you still want a higher strength, bigger texture and more natural presentation? Then you're almost out of luck. In fact, unless you're lucky enough to visit the distillery itself in the Inner Hebrides (and also get your timing right) so you can lay your hands on a Distillery Exclusive or Feis Ile bottling, or can pay enough to get one at secondary auction, then you're completely out of luck. But that wasn't always the case...

Back when I was still a newcomer myself, I spotted a bottle of Caol Ila that had been sitting on Brisbane bar Cobbler's shelf for quite some time. On a previous visit I had enjoyed my first encounter with Laphroaig 10 Cask Strength, Batch 003 or 004 from memory, and I was now tossing up between another dram of that massive whisky, or trying this stranger of a bottle that had caught my eye. I knew of Caol Ila, but like many future whisky geeks at that stage I had only tried the 12-year old and the Distiller's Edition, so I was curious to see what Caol Ila could do at a higher strength and a younger age. This bottle didn't have an age statement, but it did have a number on the label that made me look twice - 61.6% ABV. After the bottle was pulled down from the shelf, the subtle, nondescript presentation didn't tell me much about what was coming - aside from three words, printed in small red font, diagonally across the front label: Natural Cask Strength. The rest of that experience has now been lost in the blur of time and subsequent drams, but that bottle had left an impression, and it held up perfectly well against the aforementioned Laphroaig. I later stumbled on to a very early YouTube review of that same whisky from the legendary Ralfy, who scored it very highly. And that probably would've been the end of the story, had I not come across a bottle on website The Odd Whisky Coy years later, for sale at a very reasonable price. So I snapped it up, and then waited to see if it could live up to that hazy but favourable memory. Spoiler alert: it does, and then some. And now the time has come for this bottle to get the time in the limelight that it deserves!

These non-age statement (NAS) Natural Cask Strength bottlings of Caol Ila have long been discontinued, unfortunately, and they haven't been replaced - leaving a gaping hole in the distillery's official line-up. The bottling that I'm reviewing seems to have been the last batch, which was bottled way back in 2008. From my admittedly brief research, there seem to have been quite a few different batches, somewhere around eight in fact, dating back to somewhere around 2004. Each was bottled at a different ABV, and none had any cask details on the labels - but we can assume they were matured in refill casks, probably of the American oak ex-bourbon hogshead variety, since that tends to be the preferred method for these Diageo bottlings - but that's no bad thing, not at all! So, an NAS - but young-ish - Caol Ila, bottled at a hefty cask strength of 61.6%, and most likely matured in refill casks. Despite there being no such declaration on the packaging or label, this is most definitely non-chill filtered and naturally coloured. These bottlings seem to have had a short lifespan, sadly, and this is not something that you're likely to ever see on the shelves at your regular whisky bar or bottle shop. In fact they're also scarce on the usual European auction websites, which is saying something. How did I bring myself to open such a special find and such a rarity, you ask? Well, why not! I do sometimes struggle to open some bottles, particularly those that I know I won't be able to replace, but the desire & curiosity always tend to get the better of me. So here we are!

Caol Ila Natural Cask Strength, NAS, 61.6%. Islay, Scotland.
Bottled 2008, and discontinued the same year. Presumably matured in refill casks, non-chill filtered and natural colour.

Colour: Very pale gold.

Nose: Grassy, sweet (from spirit, not cask) and coastal. Very Caol Ila. Salty smoked BBQ pork with extra salt, green grassy malt, lemon pepper and smoked red chilli flakes (chipotle). Hints of crisp red apple, dry aniseed (fennel?) and sweet shellfish. 

Texture: Medium-heavy weight. Oily & rich. A little heat, but I wouldn't call it rough or harsh - it is 61.6% to be fair! 

Taste: Clean cooking oil, lemon pepper and smoked chilli flakes again. Lovely big chunky peat that alternates between spicy, dry & earthy and sweet & oily peat. Dry aniseed, fruit syrup sweetness along with that BBQ smoked meat. Very slight flashes of dry honey and subtle floral vanilla around the edges. 

Finish: Medium-long length. Grassy malt, oily sweet peat, dry aniseed and smoked pork. Sea salt, a slight touch of of roasted root vegetables, smoked chilli flakes and lemon zest infused in that clean cooking oil. 

Score: 4 out of 5. 

Notes: Delicious. Why did they discontinue this series?? It's just not fair! I imagine it was due to pressure on the blending stocks at the time, so they had to slim down the range - and that slimming left us with just two core range official bottlings, remember. Which is a shame. If you've not had the pleasure, a cask strength refill cask Caol Ila is something like the lovechild of a Lagavulin 12-year old and a Port Charlotte 10-year old. The oily, sweet, peaty & coastal notes tying in with the BBQ smoked meat and smoked chilli. All very Islay, and all very Caol Ila. That grassy malt, coastal saltiness, smoked pork and and spirit-led sweetness are the hallmarks of a good example of what this distillery can do when it's allowed to shine. It's a rounder, richer example than many of the independent bottlings that I've come across, but without any overt cask influence - which is no bad thing at all. 

This cask strength Caol Ila absolutely belongs on the upper shelves with the Islay heavyweights, and - discounting the unpeated releases - it's a bit of a shame that the same spot now goes to independent bottlers, when this and other official bottlings (e.g. the Feis Ile and Distillery Exclusive releases) clearly shows that the distillery's owners can easily do just as well. Let's hope that Diageo reconsider at some point in the future and fill that gap in this great distillery's official offerings. Wouldn't it be great to see a peated cask strength Caol Ila sitting in the Special Releases line-up, alongside the Lagavulin and Talisker examples that are kicking so many goals lately. We can only hope!

Cheers!

Bowmore 10 Year Old Devil's Cask Inspired Whisky Review!

A travel-exclusive Bowmore that is 'inspired by' the legendary & dearly-departed Devil's Casks series that were all fully-matured in sherry casks. But make no mistake, this is not a Devil's Cask Bowmore. 

Maybe they just ran out of names for ideas? But a cynic might infer that they're trying to "cash in" on the success of the dearly-departed Devil's Cask bottlings by using the name to sell more of this new, rather different whisky - and no doubt confusing plenty of naïve duty-free buyers in the process. The real Devil's Cask bottlings, of which there were three, were all cask strength Bowmores that were fully-matured in sherry casks. The first two were very reasonably priced on release, were age-stated at 10-years, and were fully-matured in first-fill Oloroso sherry casks, while the third release lost the age statement and was matured in both Oloroso and PX sherry casks, while also bringing a massive price increase - roughly double that of the first two releases. I've only had the privilege of tasting the second release in the series, which I reviewed here, but it's still one of my absolute favourite Bowmore official bottlings that I've tasted to date. Although there have also been quite a few independent bottlings that have equalled or even beaten it. It's not all about the sherry bombs either, with plenty of cask strength ex-bourbon cask bottlings proving to be very enjoyable - particularly the Tempest series of bottlings that are also discontinued. 

For some distilleries, travel retail a.k.a duty free seems to be something of a dumping ground for average stock in fancy packaging. There's a distinct lack of age statements, decent bottling strengths and natural presentation in this market, and the pricing is no longer as reasonable as it once was. Some distilleries do treat it differently though, with Bruichladdich coming to mind, and also Bowmore's sister distillery Laphroaig - aside from their 40% ABV 1-litre offerings which in my experience are to be avoided. On the one hand, this "Devil's Cask Inspired" bottling has a few points in it's favour: firstly, the age statement has returned at 10-years, and it has been bottled at 46% ABV - which if memory serves is actually a first for Bowmore. Those two boxes are not often ticked in the 'travel retail' / duty-free sector, where apart from a few exceptions most offerings are missing many of the details that more discerning whisky buyers look for. But they've stopped short of officially stating that this bottling is non-chill filtered and colouring isn't mentioned, so we can't be sure on either of those fronts. It is quite reasonably priced, particularly in the 1-litre bottle, and thanks to the worldwide situation at the moment it's accessible in normal retail, forgoing the need to visit an international airport that by now must resemble a filmset for your typical post-apocalyptic efforts from Hollywood. On the other hand, though, it's matured in a combination of Oloroso sherry casks and red wine casks and is obviously not cask strength, so this is going to be a very different experience to what supposedly 'inspired' it. Personally I've not been blown away by the three-or-four examples of red wine cask-matured/finished Bowmores that I've tasted, even at cask strength. They just don't seem to shine like their ex-bourbon and ex-sherry counterparts, which can be truly excellent- especially when the Bowmore tropical fruitiness is still evident. But I'm always happy to be proven wrong!

Wine cask Islay whiskies can be excellent though - look at Bruichladdich's efforts for example, or even those from Ardbeg e.g. the Grooves Committee Release and to a lesser extent the recent Blaaack Committee Release. Bruichladdich are of course the most prolific users of wine casks on the island, and have been since their re-opening almost 20 years ago. So they really do know how to make the most of them, and that applies to all three single malts that they produce - unpeated, heavily peated and super-heavily peated. Bowmore though uses a light-to-medium peating level, and is very different in profile to the whiskies made on the opposite side of Loch Indaal. What's interesting here with this 'Devil's Cask Inspired' Bowmore is that it's not a wine cask finish, it's a marriage of fully-matured wine and Oloroso sherry casks. The type of wine that those casks previously held isn't mentioned either, but we can safely assume that they were red wine casks. Can we have a bit more information please Bowmore? Three simple details would change this whisky in the eyes of the whisky nerds: is it chill filtered, is it artificially coloured, and what type of wine did those wine casks hold. It doesn't seem that difficult to me, you've done these things before with other expressions, and your sister distillery (Laphroaig) already ticks these boxes semi-regularly. Without this sort of information and a bit more differentiation this whisky will just blend in with the myriad of other vaguely-described travel exclusive whiskies that are sitting on the shelves. Which seems to be exactly what has happened, since this is still widely available (present international travel situations notwithstanding) and is now spilling over into regular retail. But let's give this Bowmore the benefit of the doubt, and see what sort of devil we're dealing with!

Bowmore 'Devil's Cask Inspired', 10-years old, 46%. Islay, Scotland.

Matured in Oloroso sherry and (presumably red) wine casks. Unknown chill filtration or colouring. Travel retail exclusive. 

Colour: Bronze / copper. Possibly (probably) artificially boosted. 

Nose: Seems a little muted and muddled. Dark & dank red grape skins, a few sweet sultanas and currants, and one cherry. Some red wine tannins and a slight tinge of sea salt. Slightly meaty (game meats), with caramel, cinnamon and oak. Very slight hint of tropical fruit out in the ether. 

Texture: Light-medium weight. Seems a little flat & muted again. Slight touch of heat but it's subtle.

Taste: More caramel and cinnamon, some brown sugar and ground black pepper too. A couple of raisins & currants again, drying red grape skins and dried orange slices. Wine tannins again too but they're more subdued here. Subtle hints of dried mango and a touch of earthy peat.  

Finish: Short length. Artificial caramel syrup, slight grape must and wine tannins. Slight hints of dates, salt and tropical fruit in the background, and a touch of powdery red apple. But it's that artificial caramel note that hangs around. 

Score: 2 out of 5. 

Notes: It would've scored higher without that dull caramel note that seems to flatten and mute everything else. Is it coming from excessive e150 colouring? I can't say, but it wouldn't surprise me. And it's not something I remember finding in many Bowmores - and certainly not in the Devils Cask series. There are glimpses of Bowmore's tropical fruit, earthy powdery peat and sea salt here, but they're fleeting glimpses and if you blink you'll probably miss them. Which is a shame. I'd actually recommend reaching for the regular 15-year old Bowmore (previously known as 'Darkest', unfortunately) instead, despite it being bottled at a lower strength. And yes, even with the 1-litre travel retail bottle and reasonable pricing taken into account. Kudos must be given for the 46% bottling strength though, let's hope the distillery makes that a trend! 

Based on the smell & taste I can't help but feel like the wine casks have either been too assertive or too numerous - or both - in this one, and the presumed artificial colouring and chill filtration haven't helped either. Disclaimer though, I do tend to compare all sherry cask Bowmores to both the second Devil's Cask bottling and Elements of Islay Bw7 - one of my all-time favourite Bowmores - and that's obviously not a fair fight. Those two delicious drams are some of the best examples of what this distillery can do, and they're very, very distant cousins to this 'inspired' Devil. 

Cheers!