Scotch Malt Whisky Society 41.57

$162.89

ART IN A BOOKSHOP CAFE: Matured 24 years in the Speyside and bottled at 46.4% from a single Refill Hogshead.

Panel's Tasting Note: "The nose was ever-changing and abundant – fruit falling in orchards (apple, pear, grass) painted canvas and polished wooden frames, a bookshop-café (chocolate gateau, coffee, books); fudge, caramel, heather honey and pepper. It turned fresher with water – scented soap, pear tarte tatin, peaches and mangoes. The palate was beautifully sweet, boasting toffee, butterscotch, caramel shortcake, banana custard and rice pudding with cinnamon. It also delivered apple, orange, poster paint and a chewed pencil. In reduction – ice-cream with fruit, pot-pourri, basket-work and oak – gentle, sophisticated and bearing all the DNA of old Speysides. You pass the distillery on the road to Carron."

Drinking Tip: "When you’ve been stood up or your lover is away-this will help compensate for anything."

Scotch Malt Whisky Society 29.135

$139.49

SOLD OUT - Not Expected to Return to KWM 

FISHERMAN'S FRIEND ANISEED LOSSENGES

This 17 year old from a Refill Barrel was bottled at 60.7%.

Panel's Tasting Note: "From the word go descriptors for the aromas neat came flooding in; salty fish boxes, seaweed, beach bonfire, medicinal, Elastoplast, lint, antiseptic but also wet sand and freshly grilled salmon. To taste like sitting right next to a smoldering charcoal barbecue; hot, smoky and ashy with a sweet note of honey glazed ham and langoustines being grilled. Adding water, leathery and medicinal like a doctor’s bag as well as salty old ropes but also very sweet; brown sugar, molasses and vanilla pods. The taste, emptying last night’s catch in the harbour with a Fisherman’s Friend lozenge in your mouth. No surprise then that the whisky from this distillery was the only one allowed to be sold over the counter during US prohibition as ‘Medicinal Spirit’."

Drinking Tip: "Whilst watching or playing beach volleyball."

Scotch Malt Whisky Society 3.210

$134.99

SOLD OUT - Not Expected to Return to KWM

SOOTY & SWEET

This 17 year from a Refill Barrel at 58.9% hails from the Isle of Islay.

Panel's Tasting Note: "The first impression is ‘sooty’: a ‘well-fired roll with melted butter and cremated bacon and smoked black pudding’; later, tide-line tar, sea-shells, beach pebbles and plastic rope, and with a dash of water (don’t add too much) coal dust and uncooked cabbage. The taste is sweet and very smoky, with some liquorice and coal dust at full strength and mixed herbs with lime marmalade and a trace of blackcurrant at reduced strength. A most unusual colour - although this distillery famously bottled some ‘Black’ expressions from 1964 which now fetch around £1,600 at auction; the original retail price was £100."

Drinking Tip: "A talking point late at night."

Scotch Malt Whisky Society 48.39

$106.19

RED LIQUORICE SHOELACES

A 10 year old Speysider at 57.4% from a 1st fill barrel

Flavour profile:   Spicy & sweet

Outturn:  241 bottles

Panel's tasting note: "Fruity aromas to start; fresh apricots, orange oil and lemon curd followed by the sweeter notes of Rice Krispie cakes made with golden syrup, vanilla and almond extract. With time crystallized ginger and elderflower ginger ale – very refreshing. The taste is hot and dry with a pleasant bite like a Thai green curry with lemon grass, lime leaves, coconut milk, aniseed, tarragon and coriander. Adding water sherbet-fizzy Refreshers candies, a hint of liquorice, lime marmalade and a sprinkling of icing sugar. The taste is now artificial strawberries, like in red liquorice shoelaces, and ginger nut biscuits dipped in a milky, sugary cup of tea."

Drinking tip: "A sneaky wee afternoon dram"

Scotch Malt Whisky Society 66.46

$124.19

SOLD OUT - Not expected to return to KWM!

'PRETTY WOMAN' IN A NEW MASSERATI

This 11 year old Speysider is from a Refill Sherry Butt bottled at 56.7%.

Panel's Tasting Note: "Apart from plum, dark cherry and smoky ribs on beach barbecues – this nose was all leather and wood – the interior of a new Maserati, polishing rifles in log cabins – one panellist imagined cedar ball-gags and Julia Roberts in ‘Pretty Woman’ boots. The taste also held plenty of wood – ‘trees growing in clove fields’, bamboo shoots – and ‘a baseball bat in the mouth’; besides that – tar, dry smoke, toffee and chicory coffee – fantastic intensity! The reduced nose elicited comments about bagpipe bladders, Bovril and old pipe stems. The palate developed Biltong, pecan brittle, hickory chips, treacle and chocolate. From Kennethmont’s 1899 distillery."

Drinking Tip: "While watching a DVD of Bruce Springsteen in concert - or a football match."

Scotch Malt Whisky Society 73.61

$193.49

A WORK OF ART

This 24 year old Speysider is an impressive 57.2% after 24 years in a refill sherry butt

Flavour profile:  Spicy & dry

Outturn:  521 bottles

Panel's tasting note: "We are transported into a carpenter’s workshop that specializes in restoring antique mahogany furniture. The aromas filling the air are all very subtle and elegant; oily, waxy and hot melted glue mixed in with a smouldering Cuban cigar and a freshly made sticky toffee pudding. The taste is initially sweet, chocolate-coated sponge toffee, a hint of smoke as well as ‘woody’ flavours and a surprisingly dry, nutty finish like a VORS Amontillado Sherry. With water a bag of mixed nuts, figs, prune juice, hickory wood chips and mead wine. The taste is now dry with a lovely sweetness – a coffee and walnut cake accompanied by a glass of Oloroso Dulce Sherry."

Drinking tip: "Enjoying a rest from working in the garden"

Scotch Malt Whisky Society 27.99

$119.69

VITAL SPARK DOCKS AT CAMPBELTOWN DOCK

This 11 year old Campbeltonian whisky is from a Refill Barrel at 50.4%.

Panel's Tasting Note: "What did we find on the nose? A carpenter’s workbench, stables, Germolene, honey, burnt orange, smoked and fresh fish, charcoal, cooked apple and spilled custard mopped up with an oily rag – myriad scenes from the Vital Spark. These continued with water – sea spray, dried seaweed, lobster and old logs. The palate was sweet and medicinal, with smoker’s tooth powder, grilled fish, charred lime, salted caramel, ash and earthy spices (cumin, coriander, cardamom). Water brought out ice-cream cones, barbecued spare ribs and the spicy seeds were now cooking in a hot pan. Every part of the whisky-making process is done on site."

Drinking Tip: "Would work with something like a New Year's Day barbecue on the beach."

Glendronach 21 Year 50ML

$7.19

Not commercially available at present.

Glenfarclas 105 Cask 50ML

$9.89

Same great Glenfarclas whisky, smaller 50ml bottle. Bottled at 60%, Glenfarclas is a true cask strength as the distillery selects casks to achieve a natural strength of exactly 60%. 

Distiller's Tasting Note

Nose: Complex, oaky, apples and pears, and a tempting dark toffee sweetness.

Flavour: Dry and assertive, develops quickly to reveal a rich spiciness, combined with a hint of oak and sherried fruit.

Finish: Amazingly smooth for the strength; wonderfully warming and with a lingering smokiness, yet very rounded.

Comment: A great whisky holding all the flavours of all the Glenfarclas in one glass. Being so warming, this is the perfect Hogmanay dram. Don’t be afraid of the strength and order a 210, if you dare!