Alright, the XOP. Priciest bottle in the Douglas Laing tasting put on by Craft Cellars. Our tasting conductor tells us XOPs are labeled as such not so much because of age as the name suggests, but because DL deemed it a higher quality liquid.
Bowmore 21 yo, refill hogshead, 57.6% ABV, $780 CAD
Sniffing her:
Floral, rich, palm trees, humid beach breeze, tanning skin, healthy salty sweat, there's a specific tropical fruit there, I wanna say lychees. I don't know how it sounds from my description, but this is a phenomenal nose. If I close my eyes I am on a windy ocean beach with my wife covered in tanning lotion in full sun beside me reading under the umbrella. But there's more there too that's fleeting and hard to pin point.
OK CHEERS:
hm. So it comes in really light, something tropical, like those tropical five alives. Then it morphs on the finish into a medium bodied salty peat. It's a rocky, brighter kind of peat. Think something halfway between earthy and bonfire. There's a little citrus in there too.
Review: The nose was beautiful, definitely worthy of the XOP name, but on the palate I don't know whether there's something I can't appreciate but it was not as good as I was expecting. I've rated plenty of the peated OBs in the 80s, Bowmore 15 hit the 80s for me, all of Laphroaig's OBs, all the Lagavulin OBs are 80s. So I had very high expections. I took two takes before writting this review to make sure I wasn't off. Anyway, putting an 85 here. I think the nose deserves a 90+, but the palate was just good and interesting.
Cheers!
Simon from the S&P Crew
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