Campbeltown 5 yo 2014/2019 Blended Malt (49.1%, North Star Spirits, bourbon & PX finish)
Colour: deep gold. Nose: quite sweet with lots of runny honey, pollen, golden syrup and cocktail sugar syrups. Rather syrupy in other words. Certainly gives the impression of being older than 5 years. Continues with hints of orgeat, blossoms, cherry cake, marzipan and some simple cooking oils beneath. Mouth: the PX intervention jars a little at first with these rather sticky notes of caramelised sugar and wood varnish. However, there’s enough straightforward honey, tinned fruit juices and sultana notes of keep things fresh and satisfying. Finish: medium with wee notes of lemon polenta cake, raspberry cordial, cream soda and tangerine. Comments: Quite a departure from these other more naked anonymous young C-towners. I find the PX aspect a tad uncertain, but in this instance it has certainly delivered an undeniably pleasing confectionary quality. If you have a sweet tooth then this should be good quaffing whisky.
SGP: 751 - 82 points.

Campbeltown 5 yo 2014/2019 Blended Malt (50%, Thompson Brothers, two refill hogsheads, 816 bottles)
Colour: straw. Nose: yeast, mostly chewed out bubblegum, plain white bread, lemon vitamin tablets. Bish. Bash. Bosh. Also some rathe green maltiness, chalk and some weird shaving brush notes. With water: becomes rather raw, increasingly yeasty, some sharper lemon juice notes and an impression of slightly briny acidity. Mouth: a little creamier, more direct and well-structured than on the nose. Mustardy warmth, gauze, hessian, sunflower oil and lime zest. With water: lemon cough drops, barley water, salty bouillon stock and a nicely juicy, plush maltiness. Finish: medium but hot and prickly. Sharp, dusty malt, yeasty, putty and citric. Comments: It’s fine, even pretty good, but I find these batches a little lacking in some ways. Perhaps it is the fact that they are simply called ‘Campbeltown’, which I find irritating. Then again, perhaps I am overthinking what is clearly intended - and priced - as simple, everyday quaffing whisky.
SGP: 562 - 80 points. 

Oban 14 yo (43%, OB, -/+ 2020, 20cl)
Oban 14 is a malt I always like to follow from time to time, and one I’ll often order in a pub. I’m rarely disappointed in such instances I have to say. Serge last tried it in October 2018 from a -/+2016 rotation and was impressed (WF 88). This one from one of those wee 20cl ‘travel sesh’ bottles that Diageo do. Colour: gold. Nose: orange peel, milk chocolate with sea salt, ginger biscuits and various lighter notes of dried flowers, soft herbal touches and putty. Easy and rather straightforward but far from bland. Mouth: great arrival, all on heather honey, mead, fruit chutneys, dried apricot, peach stones and lemon barley water. Indeed, you do get an ‘impression’ of something coastal. Some slightly salty butter, yellow flowers, pollens and porridge. Finish: medium, sweet cereals, milk bottle sweets, runny honey and fruity flapjack. Comments: It’s good, but I feel some other batches had a bit more oomph. It would be interesting to know how many casks on average go into a batch of Oban 14?
SGP: 452 - 83 points.

Oban 26 yo 1992/2019 (59.2%, OB ‘Select Cask’, cask #7002, puncheon, 396 bottles)
Another from Diageo’s ‘prices of distinction’ series. Colour: gold. Nose: sharp and lightly waxy in a rather invigorating way. White stone fruits, coastal freshness, dusty malted barley and some nicely chalky, cereal and bright pollen notes. Feels fresh, clear and rather pure, although also a touch on the lighter side for Oban, which is no bad thing at all. With water: still quite dusty, chalky and pithy. Some heather flowers, burlap, pink sea salt, soda bread and a rather invigorating coastal freshness. Mouth: surprisingly soft arrival. All on gentle white pepper, lactic notes, plain yoghurt, lemon peel, mead, a rather faded waxiness and more of these cereal tones. Buttery cereals and freshly baked pastries. With water: linens, canvass, hessian, olive oil, cloves and a kind of savoury minty note. The impression of trail mix and toasted seeds. Finish: good length, still quite drying, lightly salty, savoury, cereal and some nice lingering notes of heather ale and bread dough. Comments: It’s a lovely wee dram, on the lighter side of Oban I think, but there’s still some very evocative parts to it and it possess a commendable and pleasing freshness. However, I’m pretty certain it’s not worth whatever a bottle costs. Not that we score prices on WF mind you.
SGP: 361 - 85 points. 

Tobermory 25 yo 1994/2019 (55.9%, Filmnik ‘The Shawshank Redemption’, cask #381011, hogshead, 214 bottles)
The Shawshank Redemption! How appropriate for the current state of lockdown. Let’s hope at the other side of all this its more ‘redemption’ and less ‘Shawshank’. Colour: pale gold. Nose: very lovely and very ‘Tobermory’. That is to say: wildly yeasty, bready, sourdough-ridden, baking soda, cider apples, sour perry, background farmyard notes, dried banana chips and lots of hessian cloth, wet grains, cereals and mash water. I’m a fan! With water: cleaner, more brittle and chiselled now. A rather nervous coastal freshness, wet fabrics, baking parchment and a light note of rolling tobacco. Mouth: richly malty, lightly gingery, a chalky clutter of minerals, sandalwood, hessian, gorse, sunflower oil, enough sourdough bread to start a hipster bakery, cheesecloth and hints of goat. This is a lot of fun and extremely good as well. With water: much more peppery with some splashy notes of wood spice, earthy turmeric, milk bottle sweets, crushed aspirin, dried tarragon and richly savoury, salty broths. Finish: long, wonderfully bready and full of olive oil, parchment, crisp cereals, old school shilling ales, Scotch broth and bouillon stocks. Comments: who needs distillery tours when you can simply wear a blindfold and get most of the organoleptic experience from a glass of this Tobermory? What fun! I love the way it continually evolves with water and keeps on throwing up unexpected wee evolutions in your face. Great selection by those commendable cinema fans from Beijing!
SGP: 462 - 88 points.

Ledaig 17 yo 1997/2014 (49.7%, Càrn Mòr ‘Celebration Of The Cask’, cask #643080, hogshead, 254 bottles)
Colour: straw. Nose: what’s funny is that there’s an almost identical level of yeasty-ness going on as in the Tobermory, only with an added layer of peat draped over everything. Putty, smoked olive oil, capers in brine, fish sauce, lime juice and some rather hearty kedgeree. Rather direct, straightforward and chiselled. Mouth: richly salty and umami with a direct and punchy peaty note. Then goes on to a more grubby farmyard quality with mud, tractor engine parts, boiler smoke, wood ash and things like ink and carbon paper. Also rather oily and impressively fat. Finish: long and, once again, back to this rather brothy yeasty quality. Black olive tapenade, umami paste, broiled shellfish and coal smoke. Comments: Quite a big Ledaig, a notch heavier than other 97s I’ve tried and feels bigger than its abv would suggest. A tad simplistic and brutal in some respects but quality is high.
SGP: 365 - 86 points.

Ben Nevis 23 yo 1995/2019 (50.8%, The Whisky Agency for Derek Chan & Jeremy Ma, cask #654, sherry butt, 192 bottles)
Colour: amber. Nose: as is often the case with these batches, I find that the sherry matured examples display a straighter and more ‘direct’ profile at first nosing. That is to say classically polished, oily and full of gun metal, copper coins, steel wool, old toolboxes, glazed nuts and miso. I find this one wonderfully pure, elegant and the sherry nicely supple, fresh and clean. While there’s still these wee earthy and mustardy Ben Nevis touches peeping through from beneath. Great! With water: lightly bitter herbal notes, cocktail bitters, earth, black pepper, leaf mulch, pipe tobacco and salt-cured meats. Mouth: pow! The sherry and the distillate are really sitting in perfect harmony now. On one hand you have this wonderfully leafy, soft mix of damp tobaccos, dark chocolate, salted caramel, liquorice and caffe latte, while on the other there’s this syrupy waxiness, slightly gloopy, overripe fruitiness and things like clay, ointments and putty. Totally unequivocal and superb! With water: luminous and terrifically vibrant and fresh. Nutty, oily, waxy, earthy and subtly fruity with this rising spiciness in the background. Finish: long, gingery, orangey, waxy, ever so slightly tarry, a balanced bitterness and this lovely soft fruity and savoury edge in the aftertaste. Comments: I don’t know the 95s as well as the 96s but the quality would appear to be the same. Amazing distillate in a totally brilliant sherry cask. Bottlings like this are the future classics in my personal view.
SGP: 662 - 91 points.

Ben Nevis 23 yo 1996/2019 (53.6%, Elixir Distillers ‘The Single Malts Of Scotland’, cask #1784, hogshead, 182 bottles)
Colour: gold. Nose: full of sheep wool, putty, mineral oils, shoe polish, new leather, burlap, hessian and a kind of lemon-tinged waxiness - not unlike citronella candles. More of these wee mustard notes with white pepper, chalk and aspirin. Typical and superb. With water: quite saline now, more pin-sharp minerality, olive oil, hessian cloth, herbal cough syrup and this easy chalkiness. Mouth: it’s a rather sharp one, very chiselled, brittle, mineral-driven and pure. Fresh fabrics, waxed canvass, mineral salts, cough medicines, soot, bitter citrus piths and lanolin. With water: totally great with water. Wider, fatter, thicker and brimming with salted mead, heather honey, exotic fruit syrups and waxes. Finish: long, salty, nicely bitter, nervously fruity and full of twitchy minerals and light medical notes. Comments: It’s a different and altogether more naked beast than the 1995, but it’s the same lofty arena of quality. Did I mention that I’m a fan of these Ben Nevi?
SGP: 462 - 91 points.

Isle Of Jura 10 yo (43%, OB, duty free, litre, -/+ 1990)
Colour: pale gold. Nose: hey, not bad! Not that I was expecting terrible things, but this is rather lovely and quite fresh with this plush maltiness, lemon yoghurt, honeyed porridge, canvass and chalky crushed aspirin. Easy, light, bright and fresh. Mouth: good arrival, rather punchy, peppery and showing some ripe green and yellow fruits. Mineral oils, soot and toasted mixed seeds. A nice easy tension between sweeter fruitier tones and drier, more cereal and coastal aspects. A wee glimmer of bath salts and something almost like soapiness but not quite soapiness, rather more floral I’d say. Finish: medium, chalky, cereal, herbal and slightly peppery and bitter. Comments: I have to say, I’m pretty impressed. This is charismatic and shows a surprising amount of oomph and energy. I believe such bottles are still pretty cheap at auctions.
SGP: 551 - 86 points.

Isle Of Jura 24 yo 1987/2011 (53.9%, Private bottling for Vic Pulleyn by Bruichladdich Distillery, cask #198, 253 bottles)
Colour: pale gold. Nose: surprisingly clean and direct for such a Jura, lots of cooking oils, salt baked vegetables, metal polish, oily rags, mineral oils, soot, furniture wax and things like old ink wells, carbon paper and light briny and lemony touches. Impressive! With water: doubles down on these oily and cereal aspects. Sunflower oil, mineral oils, tarragon, soot, parsnips and a light salinity. Fun stuff. Mouth: more typically Jura-esque with this rather ‘jumbled’ feeling on the palate, which is not necessarily a criticism mind you. It’s just that you have this funny mix of old toolboxes, mechanical oils, rapeseed oil, grass, putty, clay, cereals, ointments, face cream, miso, watercress, hair gel. It’s all a big higgledy-piggledy and charismatically untidy. There’s also a more direct and punchy vegetal side in the mouth as well, even allusions to very old pure pot still Irish whiskeys in some respects. With water: a little more cohesive and goes kind of full circle back towards the sharper definition of the nose. Still lots of more unlikely notes of plasticine, glue, fabric, starch, mashed vegetables, olive oil, dried herbs and ink. Also gets interestingly minty and mentholated with these impressions of medical vapour rubs. Finish: quite long, salty, slightly leathery and more of these oily notes that veer between the industrial, mechanical and cooking varieties. Comments: Quite a ride, but at heart it’s a very charismatic, if somewhat funky, and noble wee islander. Exactly the kind of nutter who runs away to live on Jura I suppose. Hard to score but I liked it a lot.
SGP: 472 - 88 points.

Isle Of Jura 14 yo 1964/1979 (80 proof / 45.7%, Cadenhead Dumpy)
A super rare early vintage of Jura. Remember, the distillery was entirely reconstructed and re-commenced distilling in 1963, after being silent since circa 1900. Obviously, if anyone has any pre-1900 Jura cask samples knocking about then please do get in touch (sample to Edinburgh; invoice to Turckheim). Colour: gold. Nose: in the middle of a session mostly consisting of modern whiskies, these very old school distillates can just strike you like an arrow out of the blue. Immensely concentrated, generous and almost obscenely fat fruitiness. Quivering, gelatinous, oily and just verging on overripe. The kind of nose that brings together green, exotic and garden variety fruits in abundance. It’s also beautifully herbaceous and honeyed with a silky thread of peat running between everything. Wee elements of soot, wet hessian, olive oil, mechanical parts and a pretty bold and pushy mineral oil quality too. Beyond that you can also find many umami aromas, broths, dried herbs, waxes, crystallised fruits, pollen, verbena, cannabis and precious hardwood resins. Immense! Mouth: Just stunning! The very best cannabis resin combined with new world hops, sweetened herbal cough medicines, long-aged yellow Chartreuse, lime infused olive oil, very old cream sherry, mint cordial and a kind of molten, glowing waxiness that sits at the heart of it all. It’s also rather coastal around the edges with a perfectly drying, nibbling salinity. Finish: immensely long, oily, waxy, salty and tautly fruity. Perfection! Comments: Probably the best Jura I ever tasted. The nose makes you think the palate cannot possibly go anywhere but slightly down, but then it just pitches for the stratosphere. And not a micro-quiver of any strange OBE to found anywhere.
SGP: 763 - 94 points.

Talisker 1998/2017 (56.6%, OB for Keepers Of The Quaich, cask #6829, refill sherry butt, 618 bottles)
A funny kind of quasi-official bottling done exclusively for the Keepers Of The Quiche, sorry, Quaich. An illustrious group of which Serge is recently also a member. Colour: gold. Nose: lovely and surprisingly soft and gentle with these notes of pink sea salt, gorse, wood embers, wildflowers, eucalyptus, sea greens and a very ethereal, wispy kind of peat smoke. Delicate, intricate and extremely attractive so far. With water: gets more towards sourdough and a kind of zingy yeasty acidity. Lemon juice, squid ink, hessian, miso and vapour rubs. Mouth: much bigger! Classically peppery with green peppercorns in brine, anchovy butter, chopped chives, seawater, iodine, sooty fabrics and some rather weighty smoked tea notes. With water: perfect now. Oily, peaty, peppery and showing a wonderfully fat coastality (that isn’t a word, but it should be dammit!) Things like bacon fat, camphor, paraffin and lamp oil. Gets really rather weighty and almost mechanical. Finish: long, earthy, vegetal, coastal, oily, peaty and with wee notes of preserved lemons, dried flowers and wood smoke. Comments: It is one of the whisky world’s great travesties that these had all sold out by the time Serge was persuaded to join. Hopefully he can hang in there until they get a Keeper’s single cask Brora around 2028…
SGP: 466 - 91 points.

Talisker 1960/1979 (75 proof, Berry Brothers & Rudd)
Colour: gold. Nose: a beautiful mix of crystallised and fresh exotic fruits - mango, papaya, guava, passion fruit - alongside this rather leathery old, salty dry sherry and an impression of old sweet Loire chenin. In time it’s this stunning fruitiness that really rises up and dominates. Although you also get these wonderful wee hints of herbal liqueurs, natural tar, damp pipe tobacco and rather peppery cured game meat. Just feels wonderfully full, complete, complex and at the same time cohesive. Mouth: as with all these old whiskies, even at 43% they still kick! Much more direct peat on the palate. Dried seaweed, smoked paprika, natural tar extract, old medicines, herbal bitters and a more submerged fruitiness that feels drier and more ‘preserved’ as opposed to ‘fresh’. Still this wonderfully resinous and leathery old school sherry quality inveigling everything. Finish: endlessly long and meandering through all manner of dark and exotic fruits, dry earthy peat smoke tinged with heather, herbs, cocktail bitters, mint tea, game meats and a kind of thready, smoky rancio. Comments: like the Jura, this is just in another class entirely. A style, combination and concentration of flavours which simply doesn’t exist in today’s whisky universe sadly. The power even at 43% in itself is really something to behold.
SGP: 564 - 93 points.

Ardbeg 9 yo 1998/2008 (57.4%, Scotch Malt Whisky Society, #33.68 ‘Honeycomb smoke’)
Colour: gold. Nose: wonderfully fresh and evocative, bath salts, crab sticks, coal smoke, peaty kiln air, malt vinegar, antiseptic and iodine. Terrific and immediately makes you think ‘Islay!’. With water: straighter, smokier, drier, notes of bailed hay, peat embers, muddy seawater and fishing wellies. Mouth: coal tar soap, heather smoke, bouillon, more fragrant bath salts, mineral oils, pumice, flint smoke, jasmine tea, lapsing souchong, dried mint and smoked lemons. Unusual but extremely good. There are points when you would think of a 1989 Bowmore that’s just on the perfume cusp - but falls the right side. With water: again this wonderfully floral, mineral salt side remains undimmed. Fragrant, coastal, evocative, lightly citric, gently ashy and some notes of sandalwood and seaweed broth. Finish: long, ashy, salty, hyper fresh, faintly medicinal and with this wonderfully fragrant ‘floaty’ peaty flavour in the aftertaste. Comments: I’m a big fan of this one. It’s an Ardbeg that kind of winks in the direction of 80s Bowmore without going near those kinds of extremes. I think the freshness, complexity and distinctiveness are all highly impressive. Worth seeking out I’d say. And proof that they were making some rock solid distillate in the late 90s under Glenmorangie.
SGP: 356 - 90 points.

Ardbeg 23 yo 1993/2017 (52.4%, Cadenhead, 175th Anniversary Tasting Session, bourbon hogshead)
Colour: pale gold. Nose: extraordinarily pure and powerful with a real blast furnace of peat coming at you out of the glass. Charred whelks, petrol, pure seawater, kelp, bonfire embers and fresh lemon juice. I wouldn’t say it’s super complex, but rather it’s the purity, precision and sheer beauty of the flavours which is so thrilling and striking. Was 1993 the most inconsistent year for Ardbeg? The quality seems to have been all over the place. With water: gets almost hyper saline, fresh, citric and pure. Some wispy notes of smoky wood ashes, dried seaweed, rock pools and medical balms and vapour rubs. Mouth: reminiscent of some 1978s with this almost diesel-esque dirtiness. Big, glycerol peat, fat maltiness, hugely smoky, tarry, black olives in brine, miso broth, umami paste, TCP, iodine drops and sheep wool oils. Powerhouse, brilliant Ardbeg. With water: salty, peaty, wonderfully oily, fat and still showing this almost greasy boiler smoke grubbiness that carries with it black olive tapenade and anchovy paste. Finish: long, rather lemony (preserved lemons), lots of gauze, bandages, herbal mouthwash, antiseptic and iodine. And peat! Comments: Clearly the purifier wasn’t working… But seriously, what on earth was going on at Ardbeg in 1993? Some were only so so, while examples like this are sitting confidently alongside - or even above - many 70s counterparts. Anyway, what a cask!
SGP: 368 - 93 points.