K&L Sale Scotches

K&L has recently lowered the price on a number of their exclusive barrel picks, so I picked some up...because I'm a sucker for a sale.

BenRiach 1994 Peated, 19 years old, Cask 7187, Bourbon Barrel, 53% abv ($110)

The nose has heavy, sharp peat. The palate has sweet peat notes and then gets a bit sour.  It has a great peaty finish on the nose.  This is very BenRiach with its sharp peat notes.  It's a bit one note, as the peated BenRiachs tend to be, but it's quite decent.


Bowmore 2001 Signatory, 12 years old, Cask 1371, Refill Sherry, 59.1% abv ($59)

The nose opens with honeycomb candy (or Bit-O-Honey for those that remember that). Then, there are some fuel type notes, like you dropped your Bit-O-Honey in a mysterious puddle at the mechanic's shop, plus peat and sulfur. The palate opens with a similar mix of flavors - lots of honey plus peaty, fuel type notes. Then there are some sulfur notes which come to dominate the late palate. The finish is mostly peat.  This one is a bit weird, but I like it. It's sweet and bold and leaves you feeling peaty, and for $60, it's a great deal.


Laphroaig 1998 Signatory, 15 years old, Cask 700386, Refill Butt, 59.1% abv ($127)

The nose has tropical fruit. The palate is pure peaty Laphroaig with a very light fruitiness that stays on the palate for the finish, but the nasal exhale of the finish is pure peat.  If this was indeed, aged in a sherry cask, it must have been used multiple time as there is almost no sherry character, but it's quite good as a straight forward Laphroaig...tastes like something that could have been a distillery bottling.


That's three very solid peaters from K&L.  They were all good, but the Laphroaig was my favorite, followed by the Bowmore and then the BenRiach.  That being said, I generally tend not to favor BenRiachs as much as some others do; if you're a BenRiach fan, you may well like that one the best.

New K&L Scotch: Hepburn's Choice

Last week, K&L got in 14 new private barrel Scotches from the Hunter and Douglas Laing bottlers.   This week, I'll be reviewing the whole lineup, along with some bonus reviews of their new rums.

First up is a series of  cask strength single malts bottled in 2014 under the Hunter Laing Hepburn's Choice label.

Caol Ila 5 yo, Hepburn's Choice, distilled 2008, 61.1% abv ($50)

The nose, not surprisingly, is young, peated malt.  The palate is very sweet with lots of peat.  There's a slight bitterness late in the palate and into the finish which counteracts the sweetness, and it finishes with lots of nice peat on the nose.  It's five year old Caol Ila, and that's exactly what it tastes like.

Mortlach 7 yo, Hepburn's Choice, distilled 2007, 58% abv ($50)

The nose is perfumy and floral.  The palate opens with a bit of those floral notes but they are quickly replaced by a nice, sweet maltiness.  The finish is dry with just a trace of sweet malt and some floral notes on the nose.  This one is nicely composed though the nose was a bit too floral for me.

Tobermory Smoky & Peaty 8 yo, Hepburn's Choice, distilled 2004, 60.7% abv ($60)

The Tobermory Smoky & Peaty is peated whisky that would have gone into Tobermory's Ledaig label. On the nose there are the tequila like notes you get with young peat.  The palate is similarly brash with young peat and some acidic notes that last into the peaty finish.  This one tastes quite young (tasting blind I probably would have guessed it was younger than eight years), but it's fun and bold.

Bowmore 12 yo, Hepburn's Choice, distilled 2001, 58.4% abv ($80)

I'm liking this nose with peat and motor oil, like an old garage.  The palate follows suit with thick, fuely peat; then there's a sweet note, maybe some chocolate, maybe some dessert wine, that sticks to the roof of your mouth while the rest of your mouth is still finished in peat.  This one's a winner, bold but balanced.

Craigellachie 18 yo, Hepburn's Choice, distilled 1995, 54.3% abv ($100)

The nose has sherry and a very light sulfur note along with some coastal breeze.  On the palate there is sweet sherry and a small dose of sulfur which grows into the finish; after a few seconds the finish turns metallic, though not in a bad way, and then a bit salty.  I like how this one transitions from quite sweet to more funky.  

Miltonduff 19 yo, Hepburn's Choice, distilled 1995, 50.4% abv ($100)

This has a nice malty nose, crisp and clean with some grape juice. The palate follows suit with sweet malt notes and a light fruitiness.  It's a straight forward malt; the kind you can drink anytime.

All of these are solid malts.  My favorite was definitely the Bowmore followed by the Craigellachie.  My least favorite was probably the Mortlach which was just a bit too floral for my tastes, though it was still perfectly decent.

Josh at The Whiskey Jug, my February Blog of the Month, is also reviewing the new K&Ls with somewhat different results, so you should check out his opinions on these bottles as well.

Tomorrow: K&L's Douglas Laing Scotch Bottlings

Thanks to David Othenin-Girard for the samples.

Bowmore Devil's Casks

The latest edition to the Bowmore line is the Devil's Casks, a ten year old first fill sherry cask "small batch" whiskey that weighs in at 56.9% abv.

Bowmore Devil's Casks, 10 yo, 56.9% abv ($100).

The nose hits you first with a dry but fruity sherry backed up with smoke. The palate is milk chocolate with peat (a new M&M flavor?). It's quite sweet but with much less sherry character than I would expect, though some of the sherry contributes to the milk chocolate note.  By the finish, the peat has clearly won over the sherry.

This is a decent malt, but the strong sweetness on the palate kicks it out of balance.  It's hard to recommend at the price, which is about $30 more than Laphroaig Cairdeas or Laprhoaig Cask Strength, both of which I prefer.

Whiskey Wednesday: A Tale of Two Bowmores

It was the best of distilleries, it was the worst of distilleries. Bowmore is a legendary Islay distillery known for putting out some extraordinary single malts. The Black Bowmore is a deservedly legendary dram, blending sherry and peat so intensely that hardly any other similarly profiled whisky can compare. I recently was at a Bowmore tasting and marveled at the richness of the 30 year old Sea Dragon and some lovely independent bottlings. These Bowmores are about balance, between peat and sherry, fruit and smoke.

But there is another Bowmore, a darker, evil twin that tastes like cheap perfume. Bowmores produced in the 1980s in particular seem to have this heavily perfumed quality. Now, I freely admit that I may be oversensitive to this particular taste, but I just can't stand it. I can smell it a mile away, and I've even been able to detect it in blends. Now I've heard that they've changed practices such that they don't end up with that flavor profile anymore, but if there is any left in casks anywhere, please someone destroy it.

I also recently tasted an old 21 year old, as part of the tasting described above that included the Sea Dragon, that carried aromas of rotting food, which some described as corpse-like.

How can one distillery produce both some of the most exceptional malts but also some of the worst? Buying Bowmore is like a combination of the lottery and Russian Roulette. When you win, you win big, but when you lose, you really lose.


This ends our series of the world's worst whiskey. It's interesting to note that all of my worst whiskey choices were single malts, and two of the three were Scotches. That's not to say there aren't bad whiskeys from other parts, but these were the most interesting bad whiskeys I came across.

After a good palate cleanser, it's time to get back to the good stuff, and I mean the really good stuff! Tune in next week.