Ardbeg Corryvreckan (2009 Bottling) Whisky Review!

An Ardbeg Corryvreckan from the first year of official release (not counting the "For Discussion" 2008 pre-release), and the first batch to come to Australia. This should be interesting!

The first bottlings of Corryvreckan back in 2008-2009 were met with a bit of hesitation by Ardbeg fans. A non-age statement (NAS) bottling was replacing the legendary Airigh Nam Beist in Ardbeg's line-up, and it was a completely different whisky. The magnificent "Beist" had very much been a purist's Ardbeg, with three yearly batches of 1990 vintage, 46% ABV first-fill ex-bourbon cask matured Ardbeg that was bottled in 2006, 2007 and 2008. This newcomer though was bottled at 100 degrees Imperial proof (57.1%), was partly matured in French oak, was more expensive than the 'Beist and did not carry an age statement or vintage. While they're mostly accepted as inevitable today, back then many whisky fans considered NAS whiskies to be the enemy, and while this was only a decade ago such bottlings were much less common than they are today. This was not Ardbeg's first NAS bottling either, in fact the mighty Uigeadail was launched way back in 2003, which for some reason - perhaps Uigeadail's sherry cask component - didn't incur as much wrath as this new expression. The switch to younger NAS bottlings was always going to happen though, since the distillery was closed from 1981-1989, and was then on "life support" at the hands of Allied Distillers - who also owned nearby Laphroaig at the time - until it was again closed in 1996, before being purchased (saved) by Glenmorangie in 1997 (itself purchased by LVMH in 2004). It took them almost another year to get the distillery back up to scratch, so pre-1998 casks of Ardbeg are now seriously rare (and very costly) things. 

Interestingly, Corryvreckan was never intended to be a permanent addition to Ardbeg's line-up. When first launched it was only expected to last for 3-4 years, but it was so successful over that time that they decided to keep it, and it's still going strong now over ten years after launch. For all the hate that Ardbeg gets, it's hard to argue with the relative consistency of their core range - with Uigeadail, Corryvreckan and the 10-year old being around for well over a decade now, plus the recent addition of the milder An Oa, and the forthcoming and very promising 5-year old 'Wee Beastie'. Yes, those older core range whiskies have all changed in character over recent years, and of course have increased in price, but if you ask me they're still dependably decent quality (yes, some more than others) and they offer good value for money - much more so than many other brands. In fact that's created a bit of a problem for the distillery, since all of their limited releases are now immediately compared to the distillery's core range, particularly when pricing is factored in, and they are sometimes found wanting. I've long argued that such comparisons are missing the point a little, since the idea of the limited releases is to present something notably different to the core range, or even downright experimental. Yes, those limited releases are consistently getting more expensive, and are consistently being bottled at lower & lower strengths, but they're always unique and they always offer a different take on Ardbeg's usual style. 

Named after a whirlpool that sits north of Jura in the North Atlantic, the recipe for Corryvreckan was a marriage/vatting of roughly 70% ex-bourbon cask-matured Ardbeg and roughly 30% French oak cask-matured Ardbeg. I had always taken the latter to mean virgin French oak, and I assumed that the recipe had been the same since this whiskys inception. But rumours were floating around that there were also some ex-red wine French oak casks involved, which piqued my interest, so I had to do some investigating. I reached out to none other than Brendan McCarron, the distillery's 'Head of Maturing Whisky Stocks' and essentially Dr. Bill Lumsden's partner in crime for Ardbeg & Glenmorangie, and asked the question. Brendan graciously helped and confirmed that yes, in the earlier releases of Corryvreckan there were ex-red wine French oak casks involved, but for a long time now they've used virgin French oak, because they feel that's where the results come from. He also explained how that recipe had developed because of the change in strategy that I mentioned above - from the original intention of Corryvreckan lasting only 3-4 years, rather than being part of the distillery's permanent / core range line-up. So essentially if your bottle of Corryvreckan was bottled in the last 7-8 years or so (discerned by checking the date code on the glass under the back label - L9 166 in this case, meaning the 166th day of 2009), the French oak component will have been virgin oak, but if it's an older bottling it will also have some ex-red wine French oak casks in the mix, while still following the (roughly) 70% ex-bourbon and 30% French oak ratio. Unlike many Scotch whisky distilleries, Ardbeg aren't afraid of the assertiveness of virgin oak - perhaps helped by Corryvreckan working so well for them over the years - and they've used it quite a few times in their limited releases since. From the excellent Ardbeg Alligator, to Auriverdes and Kelpie, and now An Oa, all have used virgin oak to some extent, albeit mixed in with other cask types. Ardbeg's sweet and peaty spirit does seem to work well with a portion of virgin oak casks thrown into the mix - particularly in Alligator's case in my opinion, which was an excellent example.

It's been a year or so since I last tasted Corryvreckan, and that was a much more recent bottling - circa 2017, from memory. Nonetheless it's a fairly easy whisky to remember, since it's certainly the most assertive whisky in the Ardbeg line-up, so this older bottling will make for an interesting comparison. Although it's no longer printed on the packaging or labelling, to my knowledge it's always been non-chill filtered and naturally coloured, as is all Ardbeg single malt - print it on the packaging please people! The sample for this review came from a generous fellow whisky nerd who was lucky enough to stumble on to this 2009 bottling. Right, tasting time!

Ardbeg Corryvreckan (2009 bottling), NAS, 57.1%. Islay, Scotland.
Matured in approx. 70/30 mix of ex-bourbon and French oak casks (either virgin oak or ex-wine casks, recent batches will be virgin oak). Assumed non-chill filtered, natural colour.

Colour: Copper.

Nose: Yummy, and surprisingly soft. Loads of aniseed, toffee, tar and a floral vanilla sweetness. Then black pepper, burnt BBQ red meats - brisket? - in thick sauce. A dash of salt and charred driftwood. Toffee apples and fruity BBQ sauce with more time - thick plum & apricot BBQ sauce.

Texture: Medium weight, but very oily and silky, almost fatty. A little heat, but pleasant.

Taste: Soft entry, then a big wave of dry peppery peat, dark toffee and fresh tar, and a touch of aniseed. A good pinch of black pepper and that fruity BBQ sauce again, with some sea salt around the edges.

Finish: Long length. The aniseed comes back again, under some charred / toasted wood spices, a thick bonfire smoke and more black pepper. Then fruity BBQ sauce again, plus some vanilla & a crumbly dry peat towards the end.

Score: 4 out of 5. Not far from a 4.5. 

Notes: Very, very good. It's still a big, intense whisky, but it's certainly not as aggressive as I remember the more recent bottlings being. The nose is surprisingly soft & inviting - provided you like aniseed - and the initial palate entry is as well, before a big wave of flavour and texture hits you head-on. I don't remember those fruity, plum-like BBQ sauce notes in the more recent bottlings either - which could be down to the wine casks. Likewise the big oily-ness in the texture, but if that's down to the casks it's going to be down to the tannic virgin oak drying things out in the newer bottlings - which makes sense actually. The tar, salt, pepper & toffee is all classic Ardbeg though, but it's amplified here - and it's awesome.

So this 2009 bottling is certainly different to the newer version. It's softer, more fruity & more oily, and less aggressive, but no less intense & full-flavoured. It's still the (physically) big brother to the rest of the Ardbeg core range, and it definitely deserves its permanent seat at the table.  

Cheers!

Ballechin SFTC Oloroso Whisky Review!

A cask strength, single cask heavily-peated Ballechin, that has been fully-matured in a first-fill Oloroso sherry cask. Exciting stuff!

Ballechin (pronounced "Bell-eck-in") is the name given to the heavily-peated spirit produced at Edradour Distillery, near the attractive town of Pitlochry in the lower Scottish Highlands - around a 1.5-hour drive north from Edinburgh. The branding is a homage to Ballechin Distillery, which was a few miles from Edradour and permanently closed in 1927. Itself founded in 1837, Edradour was for quite some time was the smallest distillery in Scotland, and although it has since been beaten to that post, and has expanded its capacity thanks to the commissioning of a second distillery on-site, this is still a very small operation. That new second distillery, designed to exactly match the original, was just coming online when I was lucky enough to visit the distillery back in 2017 (full write-up here) and has more than doubled Edradour's annual production capacity - bringing it to around 325,000-litres, which is still a very small number when compared with most Scottish distilleries. Since 2002 Edradour has been owned by independent bottlers Signatory Vintage, or more specifically Andrew Symington and his brother Brian, with Signatory's operations and warehouses now also located at the distillery. Aside from the (now four) small pot stills and traditional & hands-on production methods, the distillery is widely known for its employment of traditional worm tub condensers (pictured below), where the spirit vapour from the stills is cooled back into a liquid. These older & more traditional condensers are less efficient and give less copper contact than the modern shell & tube designs, which results in a heavier, meaty and sometimes sulphurous or "funky" spirit character, which is a big part of Edradour's intrinsic style.

Worm tub condenser

The Ballechin spirit is quite heavily peated, to "not less than 50 ppm" measured on the malted barley, and despite using mainland peat - mostly sourced from Aberdeenshire - the finished whisky is actually more towards an Island style, drawing some similarities to Tobermory's Ledaig, or even some of the Islay malts in some cases, rather than the slightly lighter (but still delicious) mainland styles of heavily-peated Scotch such as Benromach's Peat Smoke or Benriach's Curiositas. Aside from the flagship expression of Ballechin 10-year old (reviewed here), the other Ballechins that you're most likely to see in Australia are the SFTC range, standing for "Straight From The Cask", which are cask strength 500ml bottlings from single casks. While the Edradour SFTC range tends to feature sherry casks, most of the Ballechin examples are matured in wine casks, such as Sauternes or Burgundy, although there have also been a couple of ex-sherry and ex-bourbon matured examples. There was a huge range of these SFTC bottlings available from the well-stocked distillery shop when I visited, in both Edradour and Ballechin guises, as well as some cask strength 700ml larger batch bottlings of both, some of which were distillery exclusive - I still remember the Madeira cask-matured Ballechin was exceptional, although I ended up going home with a delicious Chardonnay cask-matured SFTC Edradour instead. That distillery shop is very reasonably priced, which is certainly not always the case, and I highly recommend stopping in for a look-see if you're driving through Pitlochry on your way north to Speyside or the Highlands. In fact I highly recommend touring the distillery as well, I think it's important to see these smaller-scale, hands-on and traditional distilleries - Springbank, Bruichladdich, Kilchoman and Benromach also come to mind here - since they offer a different perspective from the larger and more commercial operations that sometimes get more attention from tourists.

This particular Ballechin is quite exciting, since this heavily-peated SFTC bottling has been fully-matured in a single first-fill Oloroso sherry cask. It'll be interesting to compare this against Benromach's Peat Smoke Sherry Cask cask strength bottling, another recent heavily-peated mainland single malt that was fully-matured in first-fill Oloroso sherry casks. I'm a huge fan of the Benromach, and on paper the two are similar in style - hence my excitement - and are also similarly priced at around $150 AUD, although the Ballechin is a few years older and is a 500ml bottling taken from a single cask, while the Benromach is a full-sized bottle from a larger batch. Personally I don't mind a 500ml bottle if it helps to keep the pricing down and the availability up, which it has in this case, but it's impossible to avoid comparing them against full-sized equivalents when it comes to value. 500ml bottles are a more common thing in Australian whisky though, so I can see that being a harder sell in other markets. This single cask Ballechin was distilled in February 2007, and was bottled at 11-years of age in September 2018 at a cask strength of 61% ABV, with an out-turn of 955 x 500ml bottles, which makes that single cask a 500-litre sherry butt. Like 99% of Edradour's single malts (the entry-level 10-year old at 40% is the only exception) it's non-chill filtered and naturally coloured. The sample for this review came from a swap with a fellow-whisky geek, so cheers Steve! Time to get to it.

Ballechin SFTC Oloroso Sherry Cask Matured, 11-year old. 61%. Pitlochry, Scotland.
Distilled Feb 2007, fully-matured in single first-fill Oloroso sherry cask #18, bottled September 2018. Non-chill filtered, natural colour. 955 x 500ml bottles.

Colour: Dark bronze.

Nose: Rich, leathery & fruity. Stewed stone fruit - apricot, plum & a little peach with some raisins thrown in. Dates and dusty soft old leather, and some old-style tinned boiled sweets, cherry liqueur and baking spices. Some candied orange slices & cigar boxes with more time.

Texture: Medium weight, rich & spicy, not particularly peaty though. A little heat, but hides its ABV well.

Taste: More dates and old leather, candied orange and baking spices. A little cherry liqueur again. Dry chilli flakes and a touch of bitter dark chocolate and spicy oak.

Finish: Medium length. Earthy & spicy to start with, some more bitter dark chocolate and spent coffee grounds, maybe a little rubber (not in a bad way). Date syrup, more chilli flakes and old leather, with orange peel and those stewed stone fruits in the background.

Score: 3.5 out of 5.

Notes: A big, rich, powerful dram with plenty of flavour, but the sherry cask has certainly dominated. I expected more peat & smoke to show through, but it's instead been reduced to a soft earthy note - surprising considering how assertive the peaty Ballechin spirit usually is. Maybe if it had been bottled a little earlier more of that peat & smoke would've survived? But the distillery will have bottled at this age for a reason. I do like a big dirty sherry bomb, and this Ballechin certainly delivers on that regard. In terms of dirty funky-ness, I did expect more of that since Edradour's spirit is a little weighty & funky by default - but I'd rank this one behind the Benromach Peat Smoke Sherry Cask in that regard, and further behind the excellent Longrow 14-year old Sherry Cask Matured from 2018.

Since I mentioned it above, between this single cask Ballechin and that sherry cask-matured cask strength Benromach, I'd have to go for the Benromach. It's dirtier and funkier, with more peat & smoke showing through, despite the lower peating level, and with more rancio sherry character as well. But that's just down to personal preference really, if you're of fan of this style of sherry bomb you'll certainly enjoy this Ballechin, as I did. Now I just need to get my hands on a bottle of that Madeira cask Ballechin from the distillery shop. Don't like my chances there!

Cheers!

Springbank 12 Burgundy Whisky Review!

It's a 12-year old cask strength Springbank, but not as we usually know them: this one's been fully matured in Burgundy wine casks!

This wine cask-matured (not merely finished) Springbank was bottled back in 2016, and was the second release in the series of limited bottlings that replaced the older "Wood Finish" range of Springbanks, Longrows and Hazelburn single malts - all produced by Springbank distillery - that featured the old hand-written style brown labels. The first of the new series in the updated packaging was the 17-year old Sherry Wood, which hit European shelves back in mid-2015. Interestingly though, while the older versions that they replaced were almost all merely finished in different cask types, these revamped bottlings have instead all been fully matured. From the aforementioned Sherry Wood 17, to the 12-year old Burgundy that we're looking at today, to the delicious 14-year old Bourbon Wood, to last year's 15-year old Rum Wood - which only recently arrived in Australia - they've all been fully-matured in their respective cask types. While the Sherry and Bourbon releases used a mix of first- and re-fill casks, both the Rum Wood and this Burgundy expression were matured only in first-fill casks. So far, the 14-year old Bourbon Wood has been my pick of these more recent releases, but that could certainly change with this review! I was actually lucky enough to try this whisky a couple of times when it finally landed in Australia, and it was extremely impressive. But aside from the initial pour when I cracked this bottle a few weeks ago, it's been a couple of years since I last looked at it properly.

In the grand scheme of things, it's still not a particularly common thing to find single malt Scotch whiskies that are fully matured in wine casks. Which is difficult to relate to here in Australia, where almost every local distillery relies on them very heavily - the overall results of which can be a mixed bag. Even the more adventurous and mould-breaking Scottish distilleries such as Bruichladdich and of course the more divisive Springbank will more often use wine casks only for finishing, or they will mix / marry or 'vat' the wine cask-matured spirit in with other cask types - particularly in Bruichladdich's case. There are exceptions of course, and the balance does seem to be changing - partly due to the rising costs of sherry casks, no doubt - but they're still in the minority, particularly when you're talking production volumes. Springbank have never been afraid to try something different. As one of Campbeltown's three distilleries, and one of the few remaining Scottish distilleries that is privately owned, they've always seemed to represent a mix of both tradition and unconventional-ism. Not to the same extreme as Bruichladdich perhaps, but over the years they've offered a huge variety of different cask finishes and barley sources - and it's all floor-malted at the distillery, remember. In this case with their heavier, more robust and lightly-peated namesake spirit there was never any real danger of these wine casks being allowed to go too far. Instead they've worked brilliantly with said spirit, which by the way is also distilled 2.5-times through the distillery's rather complex system of three stills, including the direct-fired wash still (the first still) and the worm tub condenser-equipped first spirit still (the second still in the series).

Burgundy wines, as the name suggests, hail from the Burgundy region of Eastern France, but it's more of a general regional term - Pinot Noir is the main type of red wine that is produced in the region, although they also produce Chardonnay and Chablis white wines. In this case the casks used held red wine, so we can be fairly certain that they were of the Pinot Noir variety, which is a dry red wine that isn't quite as heavy or tannic as the heavier types such as Syrah / Shiraz. As mentioned above this Springbank spent 12 years in those first-fill Burgundy red wine casks, and was then bottled at a cask strength of 53.5% ABV without any chill filtration or added colouring - Springbank doesn't believe in any of that nonsense, thankfully. There were 10,260 bottles of this expression released worldwide, which may sound like a lot, but it really isn't - especially for us down under where Australia is generally the last to receive its tiny allocations. Obviously being bottled in 2016 means it sold out long ago, since none of these limited release Springbanks last very long anyway. With the exception of the 17-year old Sherry Wood that I mentioned above, which seemed to hang around for quite a while - probably because of high local pricing. This 12-year old Burgundy was much more reasonably priced at around $160 AUD on release, and it can still be found at auction. And - spoiler alert - it's well worth the effort of tracking down. Time for a dram, I think!

Springbank 12-year old Burgundy, 53.5%. Campbeltown, Scotland.
Lightly peated, 2.5-times distilled. Distilled 11/2003, fully-matured in first-fill Burgundy red wine casks, bottled 05/2016. Non-chill filtered, naturally coloured. 10,260 bottles.

Colour: Amber.

Nose: Dirty dunnage warehouses, a chalky minerality, some sweet berries and a few sour cherries. Some sweetened smooth peanut butter and chocolate, plus aniseed and black pepper. Raspberry jube jellies / lollies, musty & sweet red grapes and a dry, soft earthy peat. Spearmint and creamy caramel added with more time.

Texture: Medium weight, oily, rich & complex. Dirty (that's a good thing!), funky & sweet. No heat at all, very mellow.

Taste: A good dose of Springbank's dirty dunnage warehouse "funk", black pepper, creamy caramel and more musty red grapes and sweet berries. That chalky minerality again, plus a little toasted oak and soft, earthy, dry peat in the background.

Finish: Medium-long length, dirty & funky. Black pepper and aniseed carry through, then those raspberry lollies / jellies, and caramel fudge. That dry earthy peat and dunnage warehouse / farmyard-y musty funk underneath.

Score: 4 out of 5. Almost a 4.5 in fact.

Notes: Excellent stuff. More please! Without doubt my favourite wine cask-matured / finished Campbeltown malt that I've tried to date. Far more balanced than the 14-year old Longrow Burgundy and 12-year old Springbank Claret Wood if you ask me - there's better harmony between cask & spirit here, with more distillery character left intact. In fact I'd say this Springbank could be a lesson in how to do a wine cask maturation well, and it's a great example of what they can do when carefully managed and paired with a suitably robust spirit. The volume & complexity of flavour here are excellent, but the whole package is very approachable, and it's not as 'confronting' as the "regular" Springbank 12-year old Cask Strength bottlings, so it'd be more suitable than those are to the occasional Campbeltown drinkers that are yet to take the full head-first plunge into the deep end. That said, there's still more than enough flavour and character in this 12-year old Burgundy to keep the die-hard Springbank fans (guilty) more than happy.

I'd have to put it on par with the 14-year old Bourbon Wood that I mentioned above, which I rated very highly. Certainly should've bought myself two of these! But that's almost always the case, and in a way that's also part of the fun. Cheers!

Ailsa Bay 1.2 Sweet Smoke Whisky Review!

A "micro-matured" peated Lowland single malt, that has been "precision distilled" and "scientifically created". This should be interesting!

Yes, a peated Lowland single malt! And Ailsa Bay is the only example of such a thing. In the first half of the 20th century almost all distilleries were using some amount of peat to dry their malted barley, but that fell by the wayside with the more widespread adoption of coal as an energy source, the increasing reach of rail transport and a need for lighter malts that were easier to swallow for new markets, and were also better suited to blending, among other reasons. Modern Lowland malts like Bladnoch and Auchentoshan are rightly known for their light, approachable and easy-drinking styles, but the relatively new Ailsa Bay single malt stands apart from the other Lowland malts. The peat is sourced from the Highlands, though, so don't go expecting any Island-esque flavours in this malt. What we can expect though is a significantly sweet malt, which has actually been scientifically measured as 19 "Sppm" or "sweetness parts per million" in the finished whisky. This is a first, apparently pioneered by their Master Blender Brian Kinsman, and it seems to be proprietary because they're not saying how it is measured or what they're specifically measuring. They also quote another ppm measurement that we're more familiar with, which is the phenolic content, weighing in at 22 ppm. But don't go comparing that to your favourite peated single malts, because that phenolic content has been measured in the finished whisky, not the malted barley as is the case with almost every other peated whisky. Ancnoc did do this for a while with their previous range of peated expressions, but they gave up on it for their more recent releases - probably because buyers didn't understand the difference and it was costing them sales in the ppm arms race - and went back to quoting the ppm of the malted barley.

Ailsa Bay is also different in quite a few other ways. Owned by William Grant & Sons, the large family-owned company behind Glenfiddich and Balvenie as well as blends such as Grant's and Monkey Shoulder, the first interesting point is that there is no separate Ailsa Bay distillery. The production of this single malt happens at the company's Girvan grain spirit plant in South Ayrshire, about 1.5-hours' drive south-west of Glasgow. The Ailsa Bay distillery was built in 2007, and they're still using copper pot stills (a whopping sixteen of them in fact) as required by the SWA regulations for single malt Scotch whisky, but although not an entirely new idea the location of a distillery within a distillery is an interesting concept. It's a very modern and efficient distillery as you'd expect, with everything controlled by computer, and changes can be made to multiple aspects of production, including both wash and spirit, with the press of a button. The Ailsa Bay distillery has a relatively huge production capacity of 12,000,000 litres of spirit, which is over double the size of Balvenie Distillery, although not all of that production goes to Ailsa Bay single malt, with a number of different styles of malt whisky being produced here for both blends and single malts. For reference, Girvan itself is one of the largest distilleries in Scotland, capable of producing over 115,000,000 litres of spirit per year from six huge continuous column stills. Which for some perspective is the equivalent production of around 8 Glenfiddichs, or 115 Bruichladdichs, or over 280 Kilchomans - after the latter recently doubled capacity. Girvan Distillery also produces Hendricks Gin, as well as the recently launched 'Aerstone' single malts, and the same site also hosted the Ladyburn malt distillery in the past, operating from 1965 to 1975, so there's more happening here than the pumping out of grain spirit for licensed distilling and blending.

The other major point of difference with Ailsa Bay is how this whisky is matured. While many whiskies are either fully matured or finished in smaller casks, (e.g. Laphroaig's Quarter Cask), Ailsa Bay goes the other way in a process they've dubbed "micro-maturation". It is first matured in small casks ranging from 25-litres to 100-litres in capacity that have previously held Hudson Bay Bourbon - which is also owned by William Grant & Sons, where it is kept for between six and nine months, before being filled into full-sized casks that are a mix of virgin oak, first-fill ex-bourbon and refill ex-bourbon barrels. So they're getting an aggressive and rapid maturation at the start of the whisky's life, followed by a slower and more paced maturation in the full-sized casks, albeit with some virgin oak influence included. Which is an interesting concept. I can't say why they've chosen to do it this way around, and they don't say exactly what impact this has on the final whisky, particularly in comparison to more conventional finishing in smaller casks. If the idea was to give an initial boost of wood influence, and then mellow that out through a much longer maturation period in full-size casks, then why include virgin oak casks in that secondary stage?

This is the second release of Ailsa Bay single malt, which is named after the island of Ailsa Craig west of the Girvan Distillery in the Firth of Clyde. The first release was not officially imported into Australia, so this expression, named "Release 1.2 Sweet Smoke" is the first to make it here with the blessing of William Grant's. The first was released in early 2016, with this second release following in latet's bottled at the same strength as the first release, a rather odd 48.9%, and is similar in the phenolic ppm - 22 compared to 21 - but significantly higher in the 'sweetness ppm' with 19 ppm compared to 11 in the first release. Obviously that 1 ppm difference in phenolic content is going to be undetectable, but assuming that the 'sweetness ppm' works in a similar way that is a significant boost in sweetness. Unfortunately there's no frame of reference that we can use to compare this to other whiskies, so prior to tasting I'm not sure what to expect. I'm generally not a fan of overly sweet whiskies, so I'm a little hesitant with this one, but I'm keeping an open mind. Neither of the Ailsa Bay releases has had an age statement, and both have followed the same "micro-maturation" process described above. This second release sells for around $100 AUD in Australian retailers, which is quite a reasonable price for the bottling strength, and yes that modern-looking bottle is a full-size 700ml. Unfortunately I can't find any word, official or otherwise, on whether these whiskies are chill filtered or artificially coloured. Given the bottling strength of over 46% ABV it would be a little strange if this single malt had been chill filtered, but it's not unheard of, so we can't be sure. Likewise for colouring, since while this isn't a particularly dark (or fake tan-orange) whisky, if it doesn't say it anywhere, including the official website, then we have to assume the worst. Anyway, let's get to it!

Ailsa Bay Release 1.2 'Sweet Smoke', NAS, 48.9%. Lowlands, Scotland.
Peated to 22 ppm (taken from the finished whisky), initially matured in small ex-bourbon casks for 6-9 months, then moved to full-size virgin oak, first-fill and refill ex-bourbon casks for an undisclosed period. Unknown chill filtration and colouring.

Colour: Medium gold. Probably not a huge amount of colouring added.

Nose: Interesting. Bacon, cut grass, black pepper, and sweet fruit syrup - just ripe banana, nectarine and possibly peach. Sweet orange as well. Cotton candy / candy floss, vanilla sugar, and a slightly odd metallic tang - copper coins? - that does fade a little with time.

Texture: Medium weight, but fades quickly. Definitely very sweet. A little heat, but only a touch.

Taste: Soft & sweet entry, then a big wave of spice - black peppercorns, chilli flakes, then burnt bacon, more vanilla sugar and sweet orange. A bit of fresh oak as well, and a little butter toffee.

Finish: Medium length. Softens quickly though. More burnt bacon and black pepper, more sweet orange and nectarine syrup. Some wood smoke, a little grassy malt and more vanilla sugar.

Score: 2.5 out of 5.

Notes: Interesting stuff. It's both young and woody, and sweet and spicy, all at the same time. Not quite my preferred style, but it's an enjoyable dram. I did expect more peat influence from the 22 ppm - measured in the finished whisky, not the malted barley, remember. I'd put this Ailsa Bay on par with Talisker as far as peaty-ness goes, and Talisker is "only" 25 ppm on the malted barley, so probably around 10 ppm in the finished whisky. But phenols are a funny thing, and this isn't really an exact science - it's very much subjective when it comes to tasting and smelling. This Ailsa Bay is certainly a sweet whisky, possibly a little too sweet, at least for my tastes. It does hide it's strength well, at not-far-below 50% ABV and obviously a relatively young age, there's only a little touch of heat behind the spices on the palate. I can see this working well for a newcomer to peated whisky, or a whisky novice, provided they have a sweet tooth!

If memory serves I preferred the first Ailsa Bay release to this one, but that's a hazy old memory so I could be wrong. Worth trying a dram at this reasonable price point.

Cheers!