DuckDrams

Scotch Single Malt • Bourbon barrels & Oloroso sherry butts • Unchillfiltered & Natural Colour • €50 • WB🔗

Tasting notes from last 1/4 of a bottle

Nosing

Medium peaty and maritime, with a freshness of lemon, papaya, and melon, blending with earthiness of peat and hay, a savouriness of salami and pickled cucumber and lard. Add to that vanilla pod, dry sandal wood, and spices like clove. There’s a lot of interesting and well-balanced notes to discover here.

Sipping

In a word briny; salty, savoury and barley-sugar sweet. Quite drying and earthy from the vegetal peat, with a farmy character. Some grilled lemons and ripe stone fruits. The finish is oily, smoked, and carries the fruit forward.

Final thoughts

I would say this could amount to a characterful modern classic.

⭐

Great Value

Scotch Single Malt • Ex-Bourbon barrels and Paul Lanois barriques • Unchillfiltered & Natural Colour • €68 • WB🔗

Tasting notes from a 5cl sample bottle

Nosing

Compared to the AD/: less elemental and earthy, and less peat especially (actually, this is an unpeated expression). Instead, fruitier, and brimming with honey, beeswax and oils. There’s a citric as well as lactic acidity, even some meadow flowers, keeping it fresh and vibrant.

Sipping

Rich, oily, and decadent, still towards the briny, and with lots of honey, malt, toasted nuts and sultanas. This all is undergirded by a robust, slightly fusile spirit (I’m getting vibes of Benrinnes or unpeated Bruichladdich), and smokiness in the finish.

Overall

This is good whisky. That the waxy, oily, rich base is what one pays a premium for in coveted malts like Clynelish. Overall forges less of a unique path than the regular AD/. I’d like to try the experiment of blending some AD/ with AD/10 to introduce a bit of peat and earthiness for added complexity.

Scotch Single Malt • unpeated PX, unpeated / peated Oloroso • Unchillfiltered & natural color • €64 • WB🔗

Tasting notes from a 5cl sample bottle

Nosing

On first acquaintance there are dates, cookie dough, chocolate (sherry forward), with maritime and briny notes seeping through. With time turns more musty (like wet leaves), acidic, oily and vinous. I also come to notice more of the baking spices.

Sipping

Much sweeter than the previous two expressions. Red fruits, especially blackcurrant jam, and pickles, as a condiments to broiled meat. A finish that leads in some tobacco and leather.

Overall

It is a little odd, this sherry + musty/briny profile, but I think it’s rather tasty.

Scotch Single Malt • Ex-Bourbon with Sauternes finish • Unchillfiltered & Natural Colour • €70 • WB🔗

Tasting notes from a 5cl sample bottle

Nosing

Concentrated fruitiness on the nose: tinned peaches, baked apples, orange liqueur, raisins… Definitely a honied sense of wine mead, along with ginger ale and vanilla. A little bit of varnish, and intermittently wafts of floral, perfumy notes.

Sipping

The brininess is there, but plays supporting role to the sweetness. A dense and sticky texture pointing straight towards the wine casks. Flavour-wise very concordant with the nose: loads of fruit syrup, ginger ale, toasted coffee. Some leather in the later finish, cigar smoke, and a slightly drying, oaky sensation.

Overall

This is a really juicy, opulent and moreish dram. The cask influence is driving the experience and very obvious, but that’s no problem because it’s just very tasty, and carried well by the briny spirit. By the way, definitely no peat here.

Scotch Single Malt • Bourbon and etc casks • Unchillfiltered & Natural Colour • €65 • WB🔗

Tasting notes from a 2cl sample bottle

Nosing

Most prominently a dry minerality and tarry smokiness, then some vanilla and custard, bitterness of grapefruit rind and pine needles, with something fermented or cheesy to boot. Not completely unalike an Islay, say Caol Ila, but without a pronounced Islay peat. With time becomes more sour, somewhere between lime and dishcloth (but midly).

Sipping

Briny and a bit dry, rather vibrantly spirit-y, and young-tasting. Underripe stone fruits, like nectarine, and Indian tonic. There’s a woody (but not oaky) and distinctly herbal taste, besides.

Overall

Does it smell or taste like Mezcal? I have never tried Mezcal, so I don’t know, but I’d imagine yes. Is is good? Nothing is off, this finish does work, but does not get me worked up; a bit too introverted, if that makes sense.

Scotch Single Malt • Bourbon and Caribbean rum casks • Unchillfiltered & Natural Colour • €70 • WB🔗

Tasting notes from a 5cl sample bottle

Nosing

Sea spray and pudding (vanilla and butter). A little tropical with coconut and demerara sugar, but not overtly rummy. A campfire just getting started, cedar wood. With time I’m getting more fatty, porky aromas.

Sipping

Clearly Ardnamurchan, with that briny aspect. Rather dry, with a smokiness that’s mildy peaty, lots of sea spray minerality, some yellow fruits and sultanas.

Overall

I had expected a thick rum overcoat, but in a blind tasting I would not have mentioned rum at all. In fact, this might be somewhat better than the AD/, I’m surprised to say.