Crafted at Loch Lomond’s distillery using a continuous Coffey style still, then aged in ex-bourbon barrels before finishing in a combination of fire and infrared-toasted virgin American oak barrels.
Infrared barrel toasting (as opposed to the traditional method) allows for a precise level of toasting that extracts natural properties in the barrel, releasing a range of flavours from the wood that are then caramelised to give a complex range of sweet notes.
Loch Lomond Distillery is currently Scotland’s only distillery that uses infrared-toasted barrels to finish whisky.
Appearance: Not sure why, but I was pleasantly surprised by how dark it is. Honey gold/white dessert wine. A viscous film coats the glass and a quick forming chaotic tide mark morphs into many short medium legs. After a time these legs reach further down the glass, forming a corrugated effect.
For a 43% whisky, it has a very decent ethanol wave, I like that.
Nose: Vanilla and stewed fruits. Eclair sweets and blackberries. There are also orchard fruits in the mix. Pears and apple skin. There are also faint Xmas spices. Nutmeg and cinnamon, like an apple crumble with those spices sprinkled on top.
Palate: Nice semi-viscous mouthfeel, along with pleasing alcohol tingling on the tongue. The cinnamon and orchard fruits elements continue from the nose, as do the chocolatey vanilla flavours.
That lime shows up on the palate too, nice and zesty fresh. Muller fruit corner, the berry jam one.
Finish: Finish: Short to medium in length. All the flavours linger for a time, the orchard fruits and spices for the longest. Very pleasant!
Overall: This will be bumping something off of our top 10 affordable whisky list on the site I reckon! For the price, outstanding. Even with all that’s going on in this whisky, it’s still nice and light and ‘airy’. It would be a really good BBQ sipper.
