Ben Nevis 10 Review

Hi everyone,

Another review today, this time a more usual OB.

This is a much rarer bottling of an OB. You don’t see much Ben Nevis, but when you do, it tends to be independents. Ben Nevis is owned by Nikka, which means that a lot of it ends up being shipped to Japan, as single malt as well as being used in a bunch of Japanese blends (not much of a secret anymore).

Anyway, I’d kept my eye out for this one for a while. Thanks to Rowan for the sample.

 

Ben Nevis 10 46%

Colour: Gold

Body: Medium/Full

Nose: Sweet and malty, golden raisin, golden syrup, quite Macallan-like actually, quite oily smelling, thick and unctuous. Nice nose, though there are metallic hints at times.

Taste: Thick and oily, sweet with earthy malt backing the fruit coming through, golden raisin and golden syrup, some dried fig, slightly metallic- copper pennies.

Finish: Long length. A little harsher here with some ginger spice and the metallic note coming in stronger.

Interesting whisky! I am learning that Ben Nevis make some good stuff. There's definitely some good sherry casks in here with the quite robust spirit.

74/100

 

Thanks for reading!

Updated Distillery Rankings

Scotch Review #861

Whisky Network Review #1035

Network Average: 75.2

Best Score: 94

Worst Score: 12

0-49 Terrible

50-59 Bad

60-64 Just About OK

65-69 Ok to Good

70-74 Good

75-79 Very Good

80-84 Excellent

85-89 Superb

90+ Magnificent

 

Full Disclosure Disclaimer: I currently work as the Global Brand Ambassador for Penderyn Distillery. The views expressed here are purely my own and do not reflect the views of Penderyn Distillery or The Welsh Whisky Company. I try to maintain as much objectivity as I can but feel free to take my reviews with as big a pinch of salt as you like. Furthermore, my rating scale is NOT based on a Parker type wine scoring scale or a school/college/university % or A-F grade score. You can find more on my scoring here. I apologise for any seemly low or 'bad' scores given with my system and I am sorry I can't say only nice things. Please keep in mind that I am ethically compromised and I am unable to produce 100% unbiased reviews.

Why is this here?

Arran 10, 18, 21, Sherry Cask & The Bothy Reviews

Hi everyone,

Got a few Arran’s for you today! Gotta say, I love the new packaging and range. The new bottles have a great look and feel, though of course its the juice that we’re really interested in. Plenty of the new stuff seems darker, with more sherry casks in the mix of the usual age statement range.

Having started in 1995, it is now Arran’s 25th Anniversary, which should bring some exciting things as well.

If memory serves, my first experience of Arran was the 12yo cask strength, which I found very solid but isn’t around anymore. Since then I’ve always found Arran to be very dependable, quality malt.

Arran 10 (2019) 46%

Colour: Dark Gold

Body: Medium

Nose: A sweet shop that only sells gummy sweets, some kiwi, keylime pie, whipped cream, very fresh and bright.

Taste: Malty and soft then a big hit of fresh fruit, melon and apple, gummy sweets but goes a bit rubbery.

Finish: Short/Medium length. More rubbery here with some malt and apple.

Fresh and malty, kept back a little by the rubbery notes that I seem to be very sensitive to.

66/100

 

Arran 18 (2019) 46%

Colour: Amber

Body: Medium/Full

Nose: Bright cherry, malt and chocolate. A heavier, almost meaty Arran. Toffee apple, a little gravy maybe, some vanilla, a little creamy.

Taste: Malty arrival, raspberry and cherry, again quite heavy and thick, almost Mortlachian, then some unfortunate rubber. Seems that the sherry wasn't quite perfect.

Finish: Short length. A little of that rubber and cherry but another short finish...

This was so almost so damn good. A Mortlach of an Arran ruined by the rubber and short finish. Fun whisky though.

74/100

 

Arran 21 (2019) 46%

Colour: Light Amber

Body: Medium

Nose: Malty and robust with plenty of fruit, red apple, spearmint, herbal pockets, wild strawberry, dark chocolate truffles, all nicely in balance and expressive.

Taste: Soft arrival, really good, chocolate and malt, a little orange, wild strawberry, dry oak, some leather, goes a bit flat into the finish.

Finish: Medium/Long length. A bit flatter here with oak and a little chocolate.

Would be in the 80's if the finish hadn't let it down. Nose is the star here.

76/100

 

Arran Sherry Cask 'The Bodega' 55.8%

Colour: Amber

Body: Medium/Full

Nose: Ethereal rather than a full on Sherry bomb, actually a bit medicinal, cherry cough sweets, cherry lip gloss, something slightly mouldy? Interesting nose.

Taste: Sharp and sweet, medicinal again, cough syrup, raisin and prune, plum, quite fruity and something more oily as it develops. A bit of rubber near the finish.

Finish: Short/Medium length. Fades quicker than expected. Fruity with some rubber.

Not completely pleasant but very interesting whisky.

71/100

 

Arran The Bothy Batch 3 53.2%

Colour: Gold

Body: Medium

Nose: Slightly tropical, austere, lemon, butterscotch biscuits, some nettle and mint, creamy vanilla.

Taste: Soft and creamy, biscuit, malt, lemon, dark chocolate, some leather, really nicely balanced, oily into the finish.

Finish: Medium length. Very oily here with more creamy biscuits.

Quarter casks used. Similar to the Wolfburn Langskip.

75/100

Thanks for reading!

Updated Distillery Rankings

Scotch Reviews #842-#846

Whisky Network Reviews #1012-#1016

Network Average: 75.2

Best Score: 94

Worst Score: 12

0-49 Terrible

50-59 Bad

60-64 Just About OK

65-69 Ok to Good

70-74 Good

75-79 Very Good

80-84 Excellent

85-89 Superb

90+ Magnificent

Full Disclosure Disclaimer: I currently work as the Global Brand Ambassador for Penderyn Distillery. The views expressed here are purely my own and do not reflect the views of Penderyn Distillery or The Welsh Whisky Company. I try to maintain as much objectivity as I can but feel free to take my reviews with as big a pinch of salt as you like. Furthermore, my rating scale is NOT based on a Parker type wine scoring scale or a school/college/university % or A-F grade score. You can find more on my scoring here. I apologise for any seemly low or 'bad' scores given with my system and I am sorry I can't say only nice things. Please keep in mind that I am ethically compromised and I am unable to produce 100% unbiased reviews.

Why is this here?

Lagavulin 10 Review

Hi everyone,

I’ve got another new one today, a Lagavulin exclusive to the travel retail.

Its interesting to me that Laga only had the 16 for such a long time and now, in the space of a year, we’ve had an 8yo, 9yo & now this 10 all released.

I had the chance to try this just briefly in the airport on my way out to the states.

Lagavulin 10 43%

Colour: Gold

Body: Full

Nose: Sea spray, soft smoke, oily lemon, wood smoke, not a load of complexity but pleasant. Very much like Talisker 10 on the nose, and if someone gave this to me blind that’s probably what I would guess it as.

Taste: Quite intense actually, big brash smoke, heavy oils, lemon citrus, big malty character, some burnt heather, a bit earthy

Finish: Long length. Drying, a bit unbalanced here with an abrasive thing, spicy chilli.

Fine whisky, more intense and oily than I expected for 43%. I don’t think I like this as much as the 16 though as its more simple and the finish much harsher.

71/100

Thanks for reading!

Updated Distillery Rankings

Scotch Review #793

Whisky Network Review #945

Network Average: 75.1

Best Score: 94

Worst Score: 12

0-49 Terrible

50-59 Bad

60-64 Just About OK

65-69 Ok to Good

70-74 Good

75-79 Very Good

80-84 Excellent

85-89 Superb

90+ Magnificent

Full Disclosure Disclaimer: I currently work as the Global Brand Ambassador for Penderyn Distillery. The views expressed here are purely my own and do not reflect the views of Penderyn Distillery or The Welsh Whisky Company. I try to maintain as much objectivity as I can but feel free to take my reviews with as big a pinch of salt as you like. Furthermore, my rating scale is NOT based on a Parker type wine scoring scale or a school/college/university % or A-F grade score. You can find more on my scoring here. I apologise for any seemly low or 'bad' scores given with my system and I am sorry I can't say only nice things. Please keep in mind that I am ethically compromised and I am unable to produce 100% unbiased reviews.

Why is this here?

Bladnoch Samsara, 10, 15 & 17 Reviews

Hi everyone,

Let me start by saying that I like Bladnoch as a whisky. I loved the sheep label 12yo from the old owners.

But Bladnoch has had a turbulent past, and when the last owner decided he could not continue, potential buyers were thin on the ground. David Prior ended up buying the place in 2015 and immediately went about designing a heavy new bottle and planning stupidly expensive special editions.

I got around to trying the new range because I was excited to see what they had done. I shouldn’t have been.

Bladnoch 10 46.7%

Colour: Straw

Body: Light/Medium

Nose: Dough and yeast, something savoury like Parmesan cheese, lemon but also a sour note, not really in balance, nettle and mint.

Taste: Sharp arrival, quite sour and astringent, lemon and dough, some yeastiness, weird off note into the finish.

Finish: Short/Medium length. Ugh, odd, metallic.

Oh dear. This was actually the one I was most expecting to like from the new range.

50/100

 

Bladnoch Samsara 46.7%

Colour: Dark Gold

Body: Medium

Nose: Similar style to the 10 with yeast and dough but with porridge, some ginger spice, dry oak, a little playdough/putty.

Taste: Crisp arrival, lemon citrus before the fatter doughy notes, quite clean though which is good.

Finish: Medium length. Soft, that clean lemon and porridge, some putty.

More like it but pretty boring. Where is the big Bladnoch character that I loved?

68/100

 

Bladnoch 15 46.7%

Colour: Amber

Body: Medium

Nose: Christmas spices and cherry, some chocolatey malt, light orange, a little rubber, cream and nettle.

Taste: Soft and a little flat on the arrival, mouthfeel is thin until the chocolate and malt arrive, cream and nettle, some rubber into the finish.

Finish: Medium length. Some oak, quite dry here, rubbery Sherry.

Fully matured in Sherry but still not enough to save it. My favourite from the new range I've tried but still not great. Again, quite average and also the most expensive.

69/100

 

Bladnoch 17 46.7%

Colour: Dark Gold, Red Tint

Body: Medium/Full

Nose: Herbal, dry and spicy, red gummy bears, but also a little rubber, nettle, vanilla, grass, a little porridge in the background.

Taste: Soft and fruity arrival but quite a thin mouthfeel, then dry oak, red gummy bears, cherry lips and astringent rubber.

Finish: Medium/Long length. More astringent rubber and a little harsh oak and spice.

15 years in Bourbon, 2 in Cali red wine. Another uninspired Bladnoch. The red wine has killed off the mouthfeel on the taste I think. Feels like a bit of desperate move to try and save whisky from bad barrels and hasn’t really paid off.

64/100

Thanks for reading!

Updated Distillery Rankings

Scotch reviews #759-#762

Whisky Network Reviews #901-#904

Network Average: 75.1

Best Score: 94

Worst Score: 12

0-49 Terrible

50-59 Bad

60-64 Just About OK

65-69 Ok to Good

70-74 Good

75-79 Very Good

80-84 Excellent

85-89 Superb

90+ Magnificent

Full Disclosure Disclaimer: I currently work as a Brand Ambassador for Penderyn Distillery. The views expressed here are purely my own and do not reflect the views of Penderyn Distillery or The Welsh Whisky Company. I try to maintain as much objectivity as I can but feel free to take my reviews with as big a pinch of salt as you like. Furthermore, my rating scale is NOT based on a Parker type wine scoring scale or a school/college/university % or A-F grade score. You can find more on my scoring here. I apologise for any seemly low or 'bad' scores given with my system and I am sorry I can't say only nice things. Please keep in mind that I am ethically compromised and I am unable to produce 100% unbiased reviews.

Why is this here?

Glenallachie 10 Cask Strength Batch 2 Review

Hi everyone,

Hope everyone has had a wonderful Christmas break and/or New Year! Hopefully many decent drams were consumed and shared.

Let’s start 2019 as we mean to go on, by continuing to give fair but objective reviews of whiskies.

We’ll start with a new Glenallachie and I’ll be honest, I was super excited when Billy Walker bought another distillery. Benriach, Glendronach, Glenglassaugh were all fantastic whiskies, very innovative with lots of interesting casks, single cask releases that blew our minds. It was time to see what Billy Walker would make of Glenallachie!

And yet, when it came out, the initial reviews were quite average. The first single casks were super expensive and then the age statement range came out and I realised I didn’t really care that much. I didn’t feel the need to buy a bottle straight away. ‘I’ll try it when I try it’ I thought…

 

Glenallachie 10 Cask Strength Batch 2 54.8%

Colour: Gold

Body: Full

Nose: Quite raw with sharp alcohol at first. Barley mash, lemon, a tiny balsamic note, orange blossom. A very natural nose that stays true to the distillery character but isn’t particularly complex.

Water: You can tame the abv with water but it remains stubbornly simple.

Taste: Sour orange citrus and barley forward spirit, quite spirity and raw but, again, true to the distillery character.

Water: Softer but still simple with barley, orange and oak.

Finish: Long length. Raw spice, oak and spirit. Quite a harsh finish. Better with balance with water.

There's something quite endearing about a whisky that’s so honest... Some dislike Mr. Walker for his Walkerizing^TM of whiskies by dumping them in Sherry or wine casks, completely masking the original style of the spirit. To be fair, that really isn’t the case here but the spirit character just wasn’t that great to begin with IMO (Do remember as well that 10 years ago the distillery was making whisky for blends like Chivas). I am left thinking that the new Glenallachie isn’t necessarily the golden goose I thought it would be.

65/100

Thanks for reading!

Updated Distillery Rankings

Scotch Review #716

Whisky Network Review #853

Network Average: 75.1

Best Score: 94

Worst Score: 12

0-49 Terrible

50-59 Bad

60-64 Just About OK

65-69 Ok to Good

70-74 Good

75-79 Very Good

80-84 Excellent

85-89 Superb

90+ Magnificent

Full Disclosure Disclaimer: I currently work as a Brand Ambassador for Penderyn Distillery. The views expressed here are purely my own and do not reflect the views of Penderyn Distillery or The Welsh Whisky Company. I try to maintain as much objectivity as I can but feel free to take my reviews with as big a pinch of salt as you like. Furthermore, my rating scale is NOT based on a Parker type wine scoring scale or a school/college/university % or A-F grade score. You can find more on my scoring here. I apologise for any seemly low or 'bad' scores given with my system and I am sorry I can't say only nice things. Please keep in mind that I am ethically compromised and I am unable to produce 100% unbiased reviews.

Why is this here?

Dailuaine 2007 'Peated Finish' Hidden Spirits Review

Hi everyone,

Hidden Spirits isn’t going to be an independent bottler you’ll hear a lot about. Partly because they’re an Italian based company and not much of the stuff makes it beyond.

However, you will be hearing about it from me. Because I think they’re awesome. I tried the 2007 Ledaig of theirs before and it was epic, and this one is fairly epic and its not even from a well known distillery. So, I will attempt to track down more of their stuff but in the meantime… Oh and also, I love the labels.

Peated finishes (finishing a whisky in a barrel hat held peated whisky) aren’t something we see a whole lot of. Some IB Ardmore’s, a Penderyn, a Balvenie from a while back but these tend to be Islay casks, whereas this is Ben Nevis!

 

Dailuaine 2007 ‘Peated Finish’ Hidden Spirits 56.1%

Colour: Straw

Body: Medium/Full

Nose: Fresh, very delicate peat, malt, lovely fizzy lemon citrus, lemon sherbet, very soft and understated nose.

Taste: Snowflake delicate arrival, impeccable, building oily malt and lemon sherbet freshness, very very delicate peat but less and less as it develops. Great balance too.

Finish: Long length. More peat here with the lemon sherbet now backing. Great.

Finished for 13 months in an ex-heavily peated Ben Nevis barrel! Did I mention mouthfeel is spot on too? Fantastic whisky, really impressively finished. Expert. Well done Andrea.

83/100

Thanks for reading!

Updated Distillery Rankings

Scotch Review #676

Whisky Network Review #810

Network Average: 75.1

Best Score: 94

Worst Score: 12

0-49 Terrible

50-59 Bad

60-64 Just About OK

65-69 Ok to Good

70-74 Good

75-79 Very Good

80-84 Excellent

85-89 Superb

90+ Magnificent

Full Disclosure Disclaimer: I currently work as a Brand Ambassador for Penderyn Distillery. The views expressed here are purely my own and do not reflect the views of Penderyn Distillery or The Welsh Whisky Company. I try to maintain as much objectivity as I can but feel free to take my reviews with as big a pinch of salt as you like. Furthermore, my rating scale is NOT based on a Parker type wine scoring scale or a school/college/university % or A-F grade score. You can find more on my scoring here. I apologise for any seemly low or 'bad' scores given with my system and I am sorry I can't say only nice things. Please keep in mind that I am ethically compromised and I am unable to produce 100% unbiased reviews.

Why is this here?

Glen Breton 10 Review

Hi everyone,

Its been over a month since my last review! Which is maybe the longest break I’ve taken since I posted my second one. Crazy. Do I have an excuse? Well I’ve been writing a lot and I feel like one only has so many words to write in a day, so I’ve been saving them for my book.

Anyway, I feel a little more motivated to post again now and why not open with my first ever Canadian whisky. Yes, the very first. After 800ish whiskies. But we don’t see much of it here in the UK and actually I ended up trying this in Spain.

 

Glen Breton 10 43%

Colour: Gold

Body: Medium

Nose: Clean and malty, lemon and a bit of a weird note- somewhere between Parmesan cheese and salty anchovies? Slightly savoury in any case. More and more actually as it opens up with salted pork and frying kippers. Then moments of the more average Speyside-style I expected before back to the savoury. Keeps going back and forth.

Taste: Clean and soft entry then soft lemon citrus, more malty intensity then, quite oily for 43 with some generic ginger/oak spice, drier into the finish.

Finish: Medium. More generic ginger spice, more oak.

A really unexpected nose that I quite enjoyed, if it’s a bit weird. No idea if its meant to be like that, though I imagine not. The taste and finish were the more generic Speyside-style I was expecting.

71/100

Thanks for reading!

Canadian Review #1

Whisky Network Review #778

Network Average: 75.0

Best Score: 94

Worst Score: 12

0-49 Terrible

50-59 Bad

60-64 Just About OK

65-69 Ok to Good

70-74 Good

75-79 Very Good

80-84 Excellent

85-89 Superb

90+ Magnificent

Full Disclosure Disclaimer: I currently work as a Brand Ambassador for Penderyn Distillery. The views expressed here are purely my own and do not reflect the views of Penderyn Distillery or The Welsh Whisky Company. I try to maintain as much objectivity as I can but feel free to take my reviews with as big a pinch of salt as you like. Furthermore, my rating scale is NOT based on a Parker type wine scoring scale or a school/college/university % or A-F grade score. You can find more on my scoring here. I apologise for any seemly low or 'bad' scores given with my system and I am sorry I can't say only nice things. Please keep in mind that I am ethically compromised and I am unable to produce 100% unbiased reviews.

Why is this here?