DuckDrams

from a 2cl sample bottle

🗒️ Tasting notes

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Nosing

First an assortment of fruits, tropical and otherwise (clementines, yellow apples and pears, lemon, plum). At the same time, many other impressions: waxiness — I am of coursed primed to look for it, but it is indeed there, accompanied by light smoke; there’s cookies and cream (clotted cream, cheesecake, biscuits, subtle vanilla); and abundance of subtle floral and grassy notes. All very well integrated with old oak notes that gives a drier impression.

Sipping

The taste is oily, briny, sweet — but also quite drying. Rich fruit syrup, grilled overripe pineapple, and surprisingly heavy peat (for my expectations) that’s earthy, phenolic, funky. Extremely long finish, fruity-smoky fading into earthy, with dried mulberries.

💭 Comments

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Amazing whisky. The nose is really interesting and characterful. The palate is a flavour bomb, but not in the trivial way of a cask coating. I would say it’s on the tannic side, an impression perhaps amplified by the peat as well – not to a point that it detracts from the overall experience. For a heavily peated dram, I cannot spontaneously think of a better one I’ve had, actually. Although, I can see the rightly aged Bowmore or Laphroaig being a contender. As for value, I’ve yet to taste a whisky that leaves the competition so far behind that paying more than a few hundred euros makes any sense for non-independently wealthy.

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from a 2cl sample bottle

🗒️ Tasting notes

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Nosing

The kinship with the 34yo is clear on the nose, so let me emphasize some differences: the fruits notes are somewhat richer here, the pear being especially prominent here (piggelin ice cream), and I also noticing some peach, strawberry, and sultanas. A coastal impression (salt, mineral) too, that I get less with the prior sample. Less of the cream and vanilla notes here.

Sipping

very oily, medium sweet and salty again, with and a pinch of bitterness; a very full and chewy taste experience. Rich ripe and dried fruits (mangoes, sultanas, coconut), liquorice, then the peat rolls in more like a fine smokescreen, and I notice tobacco, leather, some ash. Medium-long finish, nutty, fruity, and a hint of smoke.

💭 Comments

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I prefer this mellower level of peat that leaves room for the other elements to shine than the more confrontational peat of the 34yo. Actually, this could be the most full-ended whisky I ever had, exquisitely balancing so many elements. It is the best whisky I ever had? It’s up there, but in an important sense no. To a significant extent, the occasion makes the whisky, as in the atmosphere and people surrounding you when you enjoy it, and the quirkiness or simple deliciousness of the whisky that pops out at you in a moment where you were not expecting or anticipating it. I always make my tastings at home a special occasion, but it can’t quite touch those magical moments where the whisky itself is only half the story.

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from a 2cl sample bottle

🗒️ Tasting notes

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Nosing

very clearly peaty, quite minerally (clay, chalk), smoked ham, burning candle, earthy funk as well (hay, farmyard), but let’s not forget the fresh citrus (charred lemon). Throw in some toasted hazelnuts too.

Sipping: a little sweet and quite salty, the peat blooms forth in a dynamic way bringing salty, smoked bacon, tobacco, a dash of pepper, then turns ashier. Some dried fruits and nuts in the background.

💭 Comments

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The nose is great, but not extraordinary. The palate has a very beautiful peat, though; for the peat fan this could maybe be a reference profile. But overall, I’m not seeing here a level of quality that one couldn’t find in a contemporary bottle with less nostalgia and hype.

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