Red Bag #1 (Ardbeg) 16 year old 2006 Dramfool

Yesterday's indie Ardbeg was a hardy, tarry creature from a sherry butt. Today's older Ardbeg, er, Red Bag comes from an ex-bourbon hogshead and has a much lighter color. Not only do I know little else about it, but I can't remember when or why I went in on this bottle split. Anyhoo, I tried it alongside yesterday's excellent 12yo SMWS.

Distillery: Ardbeg

Owner: LVMH
Region: Southern Islay

Independent Bottler: Dramfool
Age: 16 years (9 Mar 2006 - 18 Mar 2022)
Maturation: bourbon hogshead
Cask#: 53rd release
Outturn: 260 bottles
Alcohol by Volume: 57.7%
(from a bottle split)

NEAT

A quirky industrial note, paralleling older Loch Lomond and Ledaig, arrives first in the nose. It lifts to reveal apricots, peaches, overripe cantaloupe, wet sand, chocolate, and soot-free peat. Oh the palate, though. Guavas, limes, tart nectarines, sweet plums, and kiwis! Of course there's also moderate peat smoke, a dash of salt, and a whiff of manure. The tart and sweet stone fruits, as well as the kiwis, live on into the finish, where they're met by salty peat and a slight herbal bitter bite.

DILUTED to 46%abv, or 1½ tsp of water per 30mL whisky

The nose is a beachside car repair garage filled with ripening guavas. Extra tart limes lead the palate, with salty toffee, milder smoke, and a soft sweetness beneath. It finishes with a stellar balance of tart, salt, sweet, and smoke.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

Another fab single Ardbeg cask, showing a character opposite to yesterday's cask. In fact it's reminiscent of an older pre-LVMH Ardbeg style, where the peat supports all the other elements, rather than lording over them. The fruits were a very welcome surprise that won me over instantly. I would have never imagined fruity Ardbeg appearing in the 21st century. This would have been a stellar bottle to possess were it half (or a third) of its price.

Availability - Sold out
Pricing - over $350
Rating - 90

Ardbeg 12 year old 2007 SMWS 33.139

That two-week Westland run was the least read cluster so far, and had the lowest weekly turnout since the last time I reviewed Japanese whisky. Sure enough, this week's first Ardbeg post's clicky count has already passed those Westlands. Scotch brings readers to the blog. Other countries' single malts appear to be of very little interest, while some bourbon fans aren't particularly happy with how I rate the oak juice. That's okay, single malt scotch is always served in my happy place, so I shall continue with the indie Ardbegs.

Today, it's a refill 'Beg butt bottled for the 2020 Feis Ile that never happened.

Distillery: Ardbeg

Owner: LVMH
Region: Southern Islay

Independent Bottler: Scotch Malt Whisky Society
Age: 12 years (24 May 2007 - 2020)
Maturation: 2nd fill Oloroso butt
Cask#: 33.139, "You would not believe!"
Outturn: 603 bottles
Alcohol by Volume: 61.3%
(from a bottle split)

NEAT

Mmmmm good nose. Oysters, herbal-tinged peat smoke, almond butter, and dried cherries live on top, with hints of charred and smoked meats linger below. The palate starts out with tar, umami, kiln, lime, and salt. It's gorgeously bitter. Charred green bell pepper and iodine arrive later on. It finishes tart, salty, and savory, with that herbal bitterness looming largest.

DILUTED to ~50%abv, or > 1¼ tsp of water per 30mL whisky

The nose keeps the oyster/beach note, but now there's a dirty boat dock too. Cinnamonny peat and pine needles stay in the midground. Dried cherries have joined the palate's excellent bitterness, while dark chocolate and kiln notes hug the edges. It finishes with kiln, dried savory and bitter herbs, as well as a little bit of basil syrup.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

"You would not believe!"? Ardbeg, I cannot believe you let this gem of a cask out of your sight! It knocks the current Oogie batches on their arses. Aren't you charging like $400-$800/bottle for these official single butts now? So I guess this a "thank you". Thank you for letting this cask slip out so that SMWS could charge a mere $285/bottle for it.

This whisky market sucks.

Anyway, 33.139 is how I like my peat monsters, full of savoriness and ocean and bitterness and a hint of fruit. Adding water to it felt almost tragic, but luckily it held together. To those of you who haven't flipped this bottle, just know that at least you received high quality in return for all those $$$€€€£££.

Availability - Sold out
Pricing - $285 (I think) in 2020
Rating - 90 (neat)

Ardbeg 13 year old 2005 Chieftain's, cask 700163

One way to get back into single malt scotch reviews is to dive nose-first into three Ardbegs. Indie Ardbegs, in fact.

I said goodbye to Chieftain's more than three years ago and, oh look, here's my second post-Chieftain's Chieftain's review (with at least two more to try in the future). That means, of course, that this review isn't even remotely timely. Diving for Pearls is nothing if not consistent.

Cue the Ardbeg!

Distillery: Ardbeg

Owner: LVMH
Region: Southern Islay

Independent Bottler: Ian McLeod
Range: Chieftain's
Age: 13 years old (April 2005 - September 2018)
Maturation: Hogshead
Cask number: 700163
Outturn: 328 bottles
Alcohol by Volume: 46%
(from a bottle split)

NEAT

It reads almost like Caol Ila on the nose. No soot, but lots of ocean, seaweed, and oysters. Grapefruit and brown sugar. Lemon bars and cinnamon-loaded applesauce. But oh is it modern Ardbeg on the palate, so heavy on the bitter soot. There are some hints of dark chocolate, earth, and sweetness, but it's mostly soot. It finishes savory and peppery, sooty and salty.

DILUTED to ~42%abv, or ½ tsp of water per 30mL whisky

The fruit moves forward and the beach retreats in the gentle nose. Not much change in the palate, though. In fact it's even more monolithic, one dark big pile of soot. Just a little bit of mint in the background, maybe. The finish gets pepperier, bitterer, and mintier.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

Great nose! Not great palate. It smelled closer to Caol Ila, Bowmore, and Allied-era Ardbeg, which was a thrill thwarted by the nearly one dimensional flavor. Perhaps this would have appealed to me more, like, twelve years ago, when gigantic peat was still exciting to me. Now, I'd be happy just to nose this while outdoors in autumn. Your own peat mileage may vary.

Availability - Sold out
Pricing - around $200, even in 2018
Rating - 82 (palate is in the 70s)

Way Too Many Westlands + a Movie, Part 6

I'm ending this series with a horrible film.

New York Ripper (1982, Italy)

source

Eleven years after A Lizard in a Woman's Skin, Lucio Fulci vomited out the putrescent New York Ripper. Indeed Ripper doesn't even seem to have been directed or produced, rather it was mindlessly ejected — no, not ejaculated, as that verb has some positive connotations — from bored, hateful bodies. The cinematography is flat, the writing wretched, and the editing clumsy. Barely a thought seems to have gone into the "mystery", or how anything actually works within New York City, psychopaths, or humans in general. The film slumps around between extended scenes of the humiliation, torture, and graphic slaughter of women. To top it all off, Ripper commits the greatest sin of any exploitation film: It's boring. At least Fulci's The Beyond, Don't Torture a Duckling, and especially Zombi offer creativity, imagination, and craptacular entertainment. Even with its killer that tries to talk like a duck, New York Ripper has not a moment of good WTF-isms, rather it's "Why TF am I wasting my life with this" from beginning to end.

Verdict - quack quack quack flush this

---

Now, the whiskies.

Both of these are older than yesterday's immature 2 year olds, and one of them has special barley!

Westland 3 year old 2012, cask 34 for Whole Foods

Distillery: Westland
Region: Seattle, Washington
Age: 39 Months
Mashbill: The five-malt mix
Yeast: Belgian Saison Brewer’s Yeast
Fermentation: 144 hours
Maturation: New American Oak
Release: November 2015
Outturn: 174 bottles
Alcohol by volume: 55.5%

NEAT

A bit dessert-like on the nose. There's a mix of apple, cinnamon, clove, and yeast up front, with bourbony cherry syrup in the back. This might have more oak-driven baking spices in the palate than any other members of this cluster. Toffee and white chocolate sit just underneath the spice, and coffee awaits in the distance. It finishes with citrus, white chocolate, nutmeg, and coffee.

DILUTED to 46%abv, or 1¼ tsp of water per 30mL whisky

The nose is an apple-cinnamon pastry stuffed with golden raisins. The palate and finish are sweeter now, with a cloud of cloves, cassia, and nutmeg.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

At first, cask 34 reads like a cross between Westland's standard American Oak expression and a Buffalo Trace Distillery bourbon, but then it goes its own way, which is mostly the cask's way. I like all the baking spices and it's never too tannic, but it doesn't do much else to separate itself from the pack of B-minus-grade Westland casks.

Rating - 82

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Westland 4 year old 2015, Pilsen cask 2508

Distillery: Westland
Region: Seattle, Washington
Age: 50 Months
Mashbill: Pilsen barley, sourced from Germany
Yeast: Belgian Saison Brewer’s Yeast
Fermentation: 144 hours
Maturation: ex-Heaven Hill bourbon cask
Release: July 2019
Outturn: 225 bottles
Alcohol by volume: 59.8%

NEAT

Lots of barley in the nose, with raw pecans in the middle, and florals and orange peel in the background. The crisp palate is also barley-driven, with baker's yeast, lime, and a cinnamon hint filling out the rest. It finishes bready and lightly sweet, with a hint of tart lime.

DILUTED

Somehow the nose gets even nuder, presenting as a clean mix of barley and Oleo Saccharum (no that's not a Satanic prayer, look it up). The palate has, in order, barley, lime, yeast, and toasted whole wheat bread. It finishes with lime and bread.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

I like this Westland variation, and wish I knew it had existed earlier! Between the German beer barley varieties and the refill cask, the distillery succeeds in their mission to allow "the grain notes space to express themselves alongside the gentle influence of a used cask". It's my second favorite whiskey of the Westland Dozen, and a nice way to end this series. If I'm ever in the market for an actual bottle of Westland, I'll keep my eyes open for a Pilsen release, or a Washington Pale Malt with a pale color. Otherwise, I'm Westlanded out.

Rating - 87

Okay everyone. Back to single malt Scotchitude next week. Have a good weekend and don't watch New York Ripper!

Way Too Many Westlands + a Movie, Part 5

A Lizard in a Woman's Skin (1971, Italy/France/Spain)

I adore Lucio Fulci's A Lizard in a Woman's Skin. Does its story logic fail to hold up in multiple viewings? Possibly. Are its killer hippies unintentionally funny? Sure. Is Anita Strindberg's nudity a bit over-utilized? Probably. Does any of that hamper my love of the film? Nope!

Every other Fulci movie I'd recommend (or not recommend) is blandly filmed, half-leaden, half-gross, one-quarter-WTF, glorious crap, which is why I find Lizard so thrilling. Lucio really assembles a grown-up film. He seizes the giallo genre by the testicoli, stuffing it with eroticism, psychedelia, fake psychoanalysis, gory dogs, and one giant goose. And the police procedural isn't half bad.

Carol (Florinda Bolkan), has been having sexy dreams about her drugs-and-sex party-throwing neighbor Julia (Ms. Strindberg), which is all very well and good until Carol dreams of murdering Julia......and the sultry neighbor is found dead in exactly the same fashion the next morning. The police make a genuine effort to sort this out and Carol comes apart at the seams. Throats are cut, heads are shot, and the murderer is caught in the final scene.

Lizard gained international notoriety when the filmmakers were taken to the Italian courts because a show-stopping scene of disemboweled dogs looked much too real. Carlo Rambaldi — yes, the man who created E.T. — had to prove in court that those poor pups were just props. The scene is unnecessary to the plot, but the effects really are remarkable for their time. And perhaps they were a hint of Fulci films to come.

Aside from Stanley Baker's solid turn as Inspector Corvin, the women steal the show. Their characters and performances are much more complex than that of their male counterparts, rendering much of the film's underlying misogyny weak in their wake.

I wonder what happened to this version of Fulci. Using the entire frame and wide-angle lenses, he builds real cinematic imagery in Lizard, without stealing too much from Bava and Argento. He even offers one split-screen moment that would make DePalma proud. After this, things got bleak in his films, and not the fun kind of bleak.

Verdict - One of my top 5 gialli!

---

The whiskies on the other hand......

I've hit the point of Westland exhaustion, and look forward to returning to Scotch Land soon. Here's a pair of very young Seattle single malts:

Westland 2 year old 2012, cask 242

Distillery: Westland
Region: Seattle, Washington
Age: 28 Months
Mashbill: The five-malt mix
Yeast: Belgian Saison Brewer’s Yeast
Fermentation: 144 hours
Maturation: New American Oak, 18-month air-dried staves, #3 char
Release: October 2014
Outturn: 223 bottles
Alcohol by volume: 54.25%

NEAT

Nutty and bready notes arrive first in the nose, followed by apple skins, vanilla, and brine. Almond extract and walnuts stick around the longest. The palate mixes apples and pears with white chocolate and butterscotch chips. Pears, butterscotch, and a hint of malt finish things off.

DILUTED to 46%abv, or 1 tsp of water per 30mL whiskey

The nose shows pears, caramel, barley, and watermelon rind. Malt, caramel, and a vague tartness form the palate. It finishes tart, sweet, and sort of malty.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

This whiskey doesn't go too far down the Craft road with overwhelming oak covering immature spirit, thankfully. It's essentially the standard American Oak release at a bolder strength, without any of the flair or quirks that a single cask can bring.

Rating - 79

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Westland 2 year old 2012, cask 266

Distillery: Westland
Region: Seattle, Washington
Age: 27 Months
Mashbill: The five-malt mix
Yeast: Belgian Saison Brewer’s Yeast
Fermentation: 144 hours
Maturation: New American Oak, 24-month air-dried staves, heavy toast/light char
Release: October 2014

Outturn: 220 bottles
Alcohol by volume: 54.5%

NEAT

The nose is similar to 242's, but with more vanilla powder and a slightly skunky note, as well as hints of confectioner's sugar and cardamom in the background. The palate is a mix of vanilla, champagne vinegar, and ethyl. Bits of malt and bitterness peek out here and there. It finishes with pear and ethyl.

DILUTED to 46%abv, or 1 tsp of water per 30mL whiskey

The nose is just vanilla, malt, and cardamom. More sweetness and tangy vinegar, with ethyl and malt staying back in the palate. It's all sweet caramel in the finish.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

This one wasn't done cooking, yet there's a lot of vanilla. It's raw, but not as good as the distillery's new make. Unsure why they picked this cask to release, I would happily choose the standard American Oak expression over this whiskey regardless of the price.

Rating - 75

Fulci wins, and I am grateful that only one more Part remains in this series.

Way Too Many Westlands + a Movie, Part 4

source

Death Laid An Egg (1968, Italy/France)

And Ewa Aulin sat on the potty?

With a sexy international cast to give the film some heft, and a title that answers why the chicken crossed the road, Death Laid an Egg offers up some promising themes and ideas that are trampled by its own filmmaking. Oh, but the chickens. There are so many chickens.

Egg begins with a dizzying, half-intriguing, half-nauseating burst of cinema and sounds that suggest we're in for an experimental film. While that visual style never again resurfaces, the soundtrack remains filled with dissonant avant-barf irritations throughout. Ultimately, the direction is more of a mystery than the story itself.

Jean-Louis Trintignant's poker face in The Conformist worked wonders as it masked the character's struggle with fascism and sexuality, but in Egg it's a heavy-handed choice that leaves one wondering whether the actor is suspicious of the director, or the character is a sociopath. The latter can't be guaranteed, but with the layered auditory cacophony, and purposely misleading editing, the film screams, "This guy is nuttier than a Panettone."

You see, dear reader, Marco (JLT) and his wife, Anna (Gina Lollobrigida), are automating their chicken business, but there may be something screwy afoot, and maybe Marco has a habit of murdering sex workers, but not murdering the company's secretary, a Swedish teenager (Ewa Aulin) who really just serves as a sidepiece (for both spouses?). Then some corporate intrigue unwinds, chickens eat a lot of feed, women's bellybuttons see a lot of sunshine, and the police get involved. There's death and an ending.

While proud in its shaming of unchecked greed, Egg only briefly tosses a bone to the plight of the worker, so it never goes full commie, just Marx-ish. Its pseudo-intellectual dialogue gets unintentionally funny, but its chickens, oh its chickens, thousands of chickens, are a delight. The anxious wiggling, strutting, and clucking birds underscore horrifying capitalism better than the characters (and filmmakers) do. They are also deeply funny, until they're not.

When the film concludes, the viewer may be most fascinated by the magical feed machine that somehow grinds up bodies (both human and canine) without anyone noticing. Perhaps that machine is a symbol of the true inhumanity of consumerism. Or it's just another plot hole, in a story so packed with gaps that it nearly gets swallowed up in its own vacuum.

I'd watch it again on mute.

Verdict - Watch it for the chickens, not the people

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Oh yeah, there were a pair of whiskies too:

These two Westlands were paired together because they were most likely the sugariest of my dozen samples. But were they really sweeties???

Westland 5 year old 2012, cask 4274

Distillery: Westland
Region: Seattle, Washington
Age: 70 Months
Mashbill: The five-malt mix
Yeast: Belgian Saison Brewer’s Yeast
Fermentation: 144 hours
Maturation: New American Oak for 60 months, then an Amaretto cask for 10 months
Release: March 2018

Outturn: 155 bottles
Alcohol by volume: 49.5%

NEAT

It's like single malt candy on the nose. Honeyed malt, white chocolate, and baked apples arrive first, followed by french vanilla ice cream, cinnamon, cloves, and a dash of rum. The palate is sweet, simple, and hotter than expected. It's just sugary apples, lemon candy, vanilla, and caramel. It finishes with soooooo much caramel, with a little bit of sour apple candy somewhere in there.

DILUTED to 46%abv, or ½ tsp of water per 30mL whiskey

The nose retracts to just three notes: honey, brown sugar, and 100% rye (think Alberta distillery). Wash down white chocolate macadamia nut cookies with some apple cider vinegar, and you have both the palate and finish.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

Had I known about the amaretto cask, I wouldn't have gone in on the but bottle split, but this was not as cloying as expected, and if not for the caramel flood, the whiskey would kinda work when neat. Not a bad experiment and (SPOILER ALERT) I liked it better than its sparring partner.

Rating - 80 (neat only)

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Westland 3 year old 2015, cask 2479 for K&L

Distillery: Westland
Region: Seattle, Washington
Age: 38 Months
Mashbill: Washington Select Pale Malt
Yeast: Belgian Saison Brewer’s Yeast
Fermentation: 144 hours
Maturation: Pedro Ximénez Hogshead
Release: November 2018

Outturn: 292 bottles
Alcohol by volume: 59.0%

NEAT

Wow, this was a dirty hoggie. The sulfuric nose is packed with earth, pepper, and stinky feet. It's very close to the line between gunpowder and rotten eggs. With more than 30 minutes of air, the nose becomes very raisiny, with brown sugar in the background. Sulfuric, savory, and ureic, the palate takes a long time to find its prunes. It finishes with umami, pepper, and prunes.

DILUTED to 46%abv, or 1¾ tsp of water per 30mL whiskey

The raisins move forward in the nose, with walnuts and honey peeking out. But still, the gunpowder and stinky feet won't leave. The palate also opens up a little with more sugar and citrus. It finishes tangy and jammy and umami.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

I don't mind a dusting of sulfur in my drink, and I often adore imperfect sherry casks, but this particular whiskey proves difficult, leaving me with a furry-feeling tongue and a gunpowder aftertaste. Dilution saves it a bit, though it's still a palate-wrecker.

Rating - 72 (diluted only)

I guess the chickens win today. At least there are no more sherry casks among the final four Westlands.

Way Too Many Westlands + a Movie, Part 3

Part 3 has more twists and turns than the previous two posts. Originally my intent was to pair up a fiery film with two 60+%abv Westlands that I'd previously called "a pair of flamethrowers". I started to queue up Don't Go in the House only to realize I didn't really want to watch a man burn naked women to death. So instead I looked for a snowy film and went with...

The Werewolf and the Yeti (1975, Spain)

I love lycanthropes (they're my people), and I had the pleasure of briefly being the production accountant on Finding Bigfoot. So how bad could this be?

Bad.

The eighth in a 12-film series, The Werewolf and the Yeti quarter-heartedly tries to refresh a wolf man origin story by having Count Waldemar get bitten by saucy wolf ladies in a random Kathmandu cave. (We know he's in Kathmandu because the film offers close-ups of off-center magazine photos of stupas.) Before he gets nibbled on, Waldemar and friends(?) are in Nepal searching for The Yeti, an important subject matter for the first 10 minutes of the film, then a MacGuffin for the next 10 minutes, then completely forgotten about for most of the rest of the running time.

The first half of TWATY depicts various people standing around talking about more exciting things, then lurches episodically in the second half. All but one of Waldemar's crew are murdered thanks to a series of stupid choices. (I almost said out-of-character choices, but there are no characteristics to speak of.) Yellowface baddies and a sadistic nurse(?) dispatch these cardboard cutouts before being chewed up by Waldemar Wolf. There's a full moon every night, and sometimes Waldie stays Wolfie in the daylight, and sometimes not. ''''¯\_(ツ)_/¯'''' He seems to get the girl at the end until OH NO HE GETS ATTACKED BY A YETI. Falling asleep, I fast-forwarded through that climactic struggle.

The violence isn't violent. The sexiness isn't sexy. The horror isn't horrifying. The yeti isn't a yeti. And more thought went into this paragraph than into TWATY's script.

Verdict - Bad.

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At least Westland casks 274 and 187 improved the experience! But there's a catch. I originally matched them up because Westland's archives said they were both over 60%abv. Except the archive was wrong. Cask 274 is actually 54.95%abv. So I'm really comparing these casks because they're both Binny's picks.

Westland 2 year old 2012, cask 274 for Binny's

Distillery: Westland
Region: Seattle, Washington
Age: 33 Months
Mashbill: The five-malt mix
Yeast: Belgian Saison Brewer’s Yeast
Fermentation: 144 hours
Maturation: New American Oak
Release: Spring 2015

Outturn: 206 bottles
Alcohol by volume: 54.95%

NEAT

Nose = bourbon. Lots of vanilla and barrel char. Then lots of barrel char and vanilla. Then applesauce on a new carpet, and maybe some dunder? Caramel chews and hard toffee lead the palate. Some plastic bottle brandy notes heat up the middle. Malt, herbal bitterness, and dunder stay in the background. It finishes with vanilla, malt, and Mt. Gay rum.

DILUTED to 46%abv, or < 1¼ tsp of water per 30mL whiskey

Oak spice takes over the nose as the vanilla and barrel char move to the background. The palate reads more complex than the nose, with vanilla, malt, chocolate, mint, and citrus. It finishes with vanilla and mint.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

Westland's gone bourbon here, sort of. It was an odd experience until I stopped insisting the brown liquid was a single malt and just considered it on its own terms. Perhaps cask 274 would do wonders in bourbon-based or rum-based cocktails. Or just on the rocks. At least it was better than the movie.

Rating - 78

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Westland 3 year old 2012, cask 187 for Binny's

Distillery: Westland
Region: Seattle, Washington
Age: 36 Months
Mashbill: Washington Select Pale Malt
Yeast: Belgian Saison Brewer’s Yeast
Fermentation: 144 hours
Maturation: 1st-fill ex-bourbon barrel
Release: April 2015

Outturn: 179 bottles
Alcohol by volume: 63.05%

NEAT

Oh, this is a whiskey of a different color. Floral esters, plantain, papaya, and cardamom swirl around the nose, with barley and brine in the back. The palate has a bright floral fruitiness, with apples, apricots, and citrons on top of cinnamon and cardamom. It finishes with citrons, tart apples, and a dollop of molasses.

DILUTED to 46%abv, or < 2¼ tsp of water per 30mL whiskey

The crisp, clean nose is all barley, honey, lime, and those floral esters. Barley, witbier, tart citrus, and a sprinkle of brown sugar fill the palate. Its finish nearly mirrors the palate with just a little more tartness.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

A lovely raw whiskey. When Westland gets it right, they really get it right. With this barely-legal fruity-fruit style, they're like Chichibu's Western mate. In cask 187, the Washington malt, gentle barrel, and careful cask management have to be the main factors, because the same yeast and fermentation times have been used on all the casks in this series so far, but this one's style is its own. If you possess a bottle from this cask, beware how easily it drinks at this mammoth strength. You're bound to fall in love and down the stairs in no time.

Rating - 89

No contest here. Cask 187 won the night, and the week.