Glenmorangie Ealanta – 19yo – 46%

Blurb: Ealanta is 19 years old and matured virgin American oak casks selected from the forests of the Ozark Mountains in Missouri, which were filled in 1993 as part of an experiment by Dr Bill Lumsden, Director of Distilling and whisky creation at Glenmorangie.

Yellow to golden in colour. Fresh nose, light fruity notes with vanilla sweets and young wood shavings. Peppery and strong on the palate, again fresh woody notes on the finish, like a brand new pencil being sharpened to a fine point. It’s sweet, but not as sweet as I was expecting from reading other comments.

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Bowmore – Batch 1, That Boutique-y Whisky Company. 48.7%. No Age Statement. Golden colour with an unmistakable kick of sherry and peat on the nose. This may not be immediately detectable as a Bowmore, however it’s most definitely an Islay dram through and through but there’s increased phenolic notes that some distillery bottlings of Bowmore’s don’t always have.

A good costal note that could come from further south on the island! Dried fruits soon make an appearance, dried apple, dates and plump raisins.

The nose and palate benefit from the craft presentation here giving a fuller experience than you don’t often get with a distillery bottled Bowmore.
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Invergordon – Batch 1, That Boutique-y Whisky Company. 41.6%. Although there is no age statement for this release, I know this contains quite a lot of 41yo Invergordon. The bottle has a wonderful illustration of a Coffey still showing the process to produce a grain whisky.

The dram is light to medium gold in colour. At first it smells maybe higher ABV than it is, but at the back there is the unmistakable smell of grain and wood, nice old piles of woody goodness, like an ancient pencil has recently been sharpened. Notes of creamy vanilla come through as if you’ve dropped a good dollop of real vanilla Cornish clotted cream ice-cream into your dram. With a bit more time passing it appears some salt and pepper has been cracked on to the top.
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Cragganmore 20yo/1991 cask 1146 MoM – 53.5% – Straw in colour, indicating bourbon finish. Classic dunnage warehouse smells; earthy, slightly woody and damp, and a big dollop of barley maltiness. A nice age on the palate, easy to drink as is. The palate follows very much on from the nose… It’s fairly thick, lightly fruity, a bit spicy and warming, the age seems to work perfectly for it. There’s a good long finish which is reasonably complex and moorish. Enjoyable dram with a slight tropical note at the end. Sadly now sold out / discontinued, but keep and eye out for any future similar bottlings. A classy, quality Speysider, I expect nothing else from the chaps at master of malt!

Benrinnes 14 Year Old MoM – 57.80%.

Rich gold colour.

Slightly woody nose, over ripe bananas, grapes and currents with plenty of natural brown demerara sugar; a general Speyside background note. Some vitality there for sure. Fairly thick and strong on the palate, a touch of water possibly needed. Slightly unusual taste, certainly something new to me. The over ripe bananas on the nose have turned into bananas on the palate that are almost rotten or at least heavily sun dried, although not yet actually quite dry.
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