Borders Distillery Malt & Rye
Upon discovering Borders’ under-the-radar inaugural release for £35, Fletch gets excited, but is immediately disappointed and takes a moment to offer some ‘feedback’. Oh dear.
Travel Retail Exclusive Quartet
When we love whisky so much, it’s hard to be brutal about some of the obvious negatives. Yet sometimes, when things are clearly wrong, we just have to call it out. This decision was not taken lightly.
Balvenie 21yo Portwood
Fletch is trying hard to find a nice, special occasion whisky but, in another fit of disappointment, he’s reminded instead of a childhood movie that still haunts him today.
Deanston 15yo Tequila Cask
Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. It’s one of Fletch’s favourites; Deanston. Looking for something that the Tequila cask has imparted, he compares it to a similarly insipid Tequila cask blend.
Lower East Side Blended Malt
Fletcher finds himself pondering this Blended Malt and, feeling like he’s being forced to make cocktails with it, he stubbornly judges it neat. Redemption? Erm… no.
Tomatin 12yo Amarone Cask
Itching to get his curious whisky face back on, Dougie heads to his local purveyor of whisky dreams. Running on nothing more than excitement and seat-of-his-pants selection, we’d like to tell you he lucked out, but, alas, no.
Caol Ila 25yo
How can Wally admit to loving a bottle and yet score it 3/10? It’s complex, but in this case he thinks Diageo have made it a big, confusing, opaque and cynical mess - for retailers and punters.
Kilchoman Loch Gruinart
The appeal of a lesser-seen and budget Islay official single malt is too much for Hamish to resist. His experience of Kilchoman’s core ranges has him excited, but the Loch Gruinart leaves him wanting.
Australian Whisky Snapshot
Taking a broad view of the rapidly expanding Australian whisky scene, Tyree delivers a snapshot with four Aussie single malts, and almost uses the full gamut of our scoring to do so.
Ardbeg Heavy Vapours
After giving Ardbeg’s latest Committee Release a kicking, Tyree reached out to Adamh, who kicked it harder. The bonus review refocusses on positivity but Ardbeg need to do better than this for £120