Good morning ponderers! Simon checking in here from the S&P crew. I took part last week in the Douglas Laing tasting that Craft Cellars in Alberta organized. I'm going into this with high expectations. These 6 bottles all range between $550-$700 CAD. For a reference the only two bottles worth more than $200 I've reviewed so far are Dalmore 18 and Balvenie 14 Week of Peat which rang in at 84 and 83 respectively. Tasty scotches, but their price point didn't shine through. After just over 70 reviews, I've handed out five 90s: Lagavulin 12 2018 - 93, Glen Scotia Victoriana - 92, Velvet Fig 2015 - 92, AD Rattray Glen Moray 8yo - 90, Ardbeg Uigeadail 2019 - 90. I'm expecting this tasting not only to blow through these numbers, but to give me some better pointers on the high end and see if my palate can handle something fancier. I was also excited to see u/the_muskox on Scotchit taking part and reviewing this same tasting. Will be fun to compare the reviews of a veteran versus me who's just taking off my training wheels.
We start off with a 25 yo Blair Athol, aged in a refill sherry butt. $598 CAD. 59.5% ABV.
Sniffing around:
This is a nice nose, butterscotchy, a little oloroso sweet, red apples. Nice and inviting but not particularly complex.
Cheers everyone:
BOOM. salted caramel, thick, tropical fruits, buttered caramel, sucre a la crême (French Canadian desert made of cream, brown sugar, and maple syrup), licorice, milk chocolate/chocolate milk. I've got this Lindt 70% Madagascar chocolate which is a little hard to find and I stock up whenever I can because it just has these tasty roasted nutty chocolate flavors to it, this reminds me of that bar. The heat on this is just right, not spicy, just a fizzy kind of heat to it. About 2/3rds of the way through this 15mL dram I start losing my tastebuds so I add a drop. It kills the heat and blows up the butterscotch covered licorice, but not a drastic change. The finish isn't spectacular, it's really on the palate that I can pull all this. The finish just has a nice spicy roasted butterscotch to it.
Reviews: For a reference point, my reviews are typically 3-4 generic flavors, and sometimes 1-2 more specific ones, so the palate here really blew my mind. The sherry was hard to find. It left a little behind on the nose that was noticeable, but on the palate it was tough to pull by itself. I asked Stuart Baxter the Douglas Laing Ambassador leading the tasting about whether this was a weak sherry cask. I didn't mean in a bad way but I think some people took offense, not sure if I used to wrong term there. Stuart said this is likely 2nd/3rd fill based on the color (which has no red hue to it at all) and the sherry being very backgrounded in the flavors. I'm putting a 93 on this review. The palate was by far the most complex and deep I've ever had, but the nose and finish... it's not that they were lackluster, just not 90s worthy. The palate more than makes up for it, hence I'm putting this on par with my highest rating thus far.
Cheers!
Simon from the S&P Crew.
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