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Single
Malt ScotchWhisky
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Whisky.com's
Top 5 Speyside Malts |
GLENFIDDICH
RARE COLLECTION AGED 40 YEARS |
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Colour:
Garnet. Dark marble .
Nose: Floral. Herbaceous borders. A rose garden. Fragrant. Honeyed. Then beeswax. Polished oak and leather armchairs. Taste: Oily, then creamy and sweet, arousing delicious expectations of the white chocolate notes that can occur in a long-matured Glenfiddich. The promise is realised, in ascending layers of flavour. After mocha coffee and pain au chocolat, boxes of dates. Then a teasing, bittersweet, moment; something dark, crazy and Belgian. Chocolate truffles in crème Anglaise. Raspberries and redcurrants with a malt-doused vanilla ice cream. Finish:
For all the sweet and creamy suggestions, this single
malt Scotch whisky is balanced by fruitiness and acidity. Finally,
a late, long, restrained dryness. Bitter chocolate pralines with
root ginger, burnt-tasting caramels in front of a smoky, aromatic
log fire. |
THE
BALVENIE VINTAGE CASK 1970 |
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Palate: Intensely sweet and Sauternes-like. Or perhaps orange muscat? With water, yet sweeter and fruitier. Finish: Becoming more like dark, clear, liquid, honey. Comment: Extraordinarily distinctive. All the characteristics I expect in Balvenie, but I have never experienced them in such a concentrated intensity. Tasting Notes by Michael Jackson More Balvenie Info... |
THE
MACALLAN 18 YEAR OLD SINGLE MALT SCOTCH WHISKY |
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Colour: Light Mahogany Nose: dried fruits and ginger, with a hint of citrus, vanilla and cinnamon Palate: Rich dried fruits, with spice, clove, orange and wood smoke Finish:
Full and lingering, with dried fruits and sweet toffee,
ginger and a hint of wood smoke.
Tasting Notes by The Macallan More Macallan Info... |
THE
GLENLIVET 18 YEAR OLD SINGLE MALT SCOTCH WHISKY |
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Nose: Full. Some peat, floral notes, sherry, honey and fruit. Body: Firm. Quite smooth. Palate: Full, round, floral. Some sweetness and quite rich. Finish:
Rich. Drying, with spice and smoke. |
CRAGGANMORE
12 YEAR OLD SINGLE MALT SCOTCH WHISKY |
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Palate: Lovely weight: honey, blackberry, cooked fruits, walnut, dried apricot. A mid- to back-palate whisky which is robust, yet silky; meaty but elegant. The word is complex. Finish: Tingle of heathery smoke binding it together. Comment:
The most complex of the flight by some margin. |
| Whisky.com's Top 5 Mainland Single Malts |
BALBLAIR
33 YEAR OLD SINGLE MALT SCOTCH WHISKY |
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Palate: Intense toasted malt-oak intensity before it drifts back off into bourbon-land. Finish: Slightly bitter honeycomb and waxy-though the demerara sweetness continues. Comment: Few malts reach this age intact. This has - and with some considerable panache. Tasting Note by Jim Murray More Balblair Info... |
GLENMORANGIE
18 YEAR OLD SINGLE MALT SCOTCH WHISKY |
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Aroma: The bouquet is very full, round and perfumed with nutty, caramel and vanilla overtones. Taste: Exceptionally smooth, 'silky' and round. Fine, fully flavoured and subtle. Aftertaste: With a long, consistent aftertaste, it is delivered with great intensity and depth. Comments:
The changes that take place during the extra eight
years of maturation are profound. A superb after dinner dram.
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GLENGOYNE
17 YEAR OLD SINGLE MALT SCOTCH WHISKY |
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Nose: Some sherry, Christmas pudding. Plenty of fruit - raisins, ripe apples and tinned oranges in syrup. Mouthfeel: Rich, mouth-coating. Initial taste: Malty, treacle, slightly nutty. Orange peel, apple compot. Rich oak. After Water: Pear Drops and vanilla. Finish: Long and rich, with spicy oak. Comments:
Multi award winning dram. One of the greats. Possibly the best
pound for pound dram on the market. |
GLEN
GARIOCH 15 YEAR OLD SINGLE MALT SCOTCH WHISKY |
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Body: Medium. Palate: Hints of lavender and oak with a syrup sweetness. Finish: Long mellow and very sumptuous. "Assertive, aromtaic, intense - a beauty" --Tasting
Notes by Glen Garioch |
AUCHENTOSHAN
SELECT SINGLE MALT SCOTCH WHISKY |
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Body: As light and fresh as a spring day Nose: Floral, green apples and a hint of lime. Very Clean Palate: Gooseberry and lime flavor, with a touch of almonds and wonderful malty sweetness, Finish:
Short, soft ad fresh, with lots of youthful characteristics.
--Tasting
Notes by Auchentoshan |
Whisky.com's
Top Island Single Malts |
ARDBEG
10 YEAR OLD SINGLE MALT SCOTCH WHISKY |
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Body: As light and fresh as a spring day Nose: Floral, green apples and a hint of lime. Very Clean Palate: Gooseberry and lime flavor, with a touch of almonds and wonderful malty sweetness, Finish:
Short, soft ad fresh, with lots of youthful characteristics.
--Tasting
Notes by Auchentoshan |
BRUICHLADDICH
15 YEAR OLD SINGLE MALT SCOTCH WHISKY |
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Selected personally by Jim McEwan to be a contemplative, any-time-of-day cuvee. Bottled with Islay spring water from 1800 million year old Gneiss rock for ultimate purity. Hedonistic, Mellow, rich, nutty, exotic, honeyed, fresh fruit salad: Yquem inspired. Matured in Bourbon Casks for 15 Years, and then mature enhanced in "Premier Grand Cru Classe" Sauternes casks for 25 weeks. --Tasting
Notes by Bruichladdich |
TALISKER
25 YEAR SINGLE MALT SCOTCH WHISKY |
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Appearance: Bright olive gold. Nose: Nose drying. Seaweed and old oranges, with smoke in the distance and some chalk. Surprisingly fruity and juicy, although with clear Talisker identity. With water almost soapy, a waxy sweetness. Smoke still present, but now more fragrant. Body: Firm. Slippery smooth. Palate: Sweet and meek to start, with some acidity and saltiness. Extraordinary flavour development. Becomes dry, stony, minerally, dusty, toasty. Ground white pepper. Chillies. Finish: Medium to long, slightly bitter, drying finish. Vegetal. --Tasting
Notes by Talisker |
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Discerning drinkers were denied the allure and sensuous pleasures of single malt whisky for decades. While Scotland had over a hundred distilleries producing malt, most of that production went into blended Scotches. The few who marketed their malt whisky "straight" were considered the exception to the norm. Fortunately, the past two decades have led to an astonishing growth in the number of single malts available. The term "Single Malt" alludes to the fact that the whisky comes from a single distillery. Bottlings of single malt can contain whisky from several casks and most often do, whereas the term single single could refer to a bottling from a single cask. The practice of combining exclusively malt whisky from different casks, at a single distillery, is called vatting. Once combined they are sometimes kept in wood for a period to marry. If it is all malt whisky from a single distillery, it is a single malt. Some distilleries might use the less precise term pure malt to describe a single but this term, or malt whisky, is most often used to describe the product when several malt distilleries have contributed. Until the 1980s, single-malt whiskies remained rare outside Scotland. There were exceptions, like Glen Grant, but the large whisky companies, those who had made their fortunes out of blended whisky, were opposed to spending money and resources promoting single malts. By the mid 1970s, stocks of whisky in bond were the highest they had ever been, and were rising fast. In 1963, the directors of Willian Grant & Son, owner of the Glenfiddich Distillery, resolved to set aside stock with the view to promoting their whisky as a single malt. |