DuckDrams

Scotch Single Malt• Vatting of three casks • €50 • WB🔗

Tasting notes from a 5cl sample bottle

Nosing

Smells strongly of a rather sulphurous wine (port) cask: red apples, rhubarb, match stick, and rubber. It is a bit strange but not in a bad way. Autumn leaves and yeasty beer with extra lactic fermentation, but also sweet honey, buttered burnt toast, oatmeal and spices. So there lots going on, both cask and spirit-wise, though not an aged kind of complexity.

Sipping

Sugary sweetness and brine, and a chewiness. A breakfast with pancakes, smoked bacon, red berry jam, toasted pistachios, all doused in syrup. Some minerality too.

Overall

For the price there’s a lot of whisky to discover here. I must say I expected something different; rather fresher and bourbon-cask exclusive (there’s no info on casks). Overall it’s a bit weird, but it works, bound together by a nice sweetness.

Not sure what I’ll do with the full bottle I have. My first reaction was, I’ll sell it, but the dram grew on me. It’s maybe one to use in a tasting in the future. It’s a fun whisky to experience and hear the reactions to.

Scotch Single Malt • Single Cask • £120 at auction • WB🔗

Tasting notes from a 5cl sample bottle

Nosing

It’s clear this is more towards the austere than the frivolous: lots of minerality, some shy fruits (papaya, plums, lime), various slightly pungent flowers and bitter herbs, that yeasty and lactic note, finished off with oak and vanilla. The age shows on the nose, which is well integrated.

Sipping

Sits somewhere between sweet and dry. Sprinkle of salt. Malt- and spirit-driven, with barely sugar, some not-yet-ripe apricots and other stone fruits, and whiffs of smoke, ash, and minerality in finish.

Overall

Minerally with some barely sugar and shy yellow and green fruits. To me this is rather typical of Ben Nevis when it does not venture whole-heartedly into the tropical fruit direction. That is, I like it a lot, but not as much as when the mangoes are flying in all directions.

Scotch Single Malt • Refill Oloroso Sherry Butts • Unchillfiltered & Natural Color • €44 • WB🔗

Tasting notes from a 5cl sample bottle

Nosing

Crispy bacon, caramel popcorn or even grilled corn, nori (dried seaweed), mangoes, and cream.

Sipping

Works dangerously well neat. Medium+ sweet, with a saltiness and savouriness, and very creamy mouthfeel. Is grilled and salted apricots a thing? Or fried pork with vanilla custard? There’s a common combo of sherry and peat, but it’s balanced and it works a treat. More of the minerality, seaweed, and even some tobacco in the finish.

Overall

This is the perfect bottle to include on a whisky tasting to represent the heavy peat, without the predictability of going for an Islay.