It’s bold – we’ll give them that. The whisky itself is actually a fine combo of smoke, sweet, citrus, and wood – although failing to properly bring them together. No, we say it’s bold because it looks very nice and well defined, but then you read what is being said. In short, we’re a site that’s built on honesty, and often we find what people say about their product to be a load of spunk – but we sort of revel in the sheer audacity of Aberfeldy.
Given as a Christmas gift, it’s always enjoyable to try out a new single malt that you’ve simply never had before. What we get is something that clearly has some faults, but brings such a nice warm and well-spiced flavor that placed in a glass neat makes this a damn fine gift.
Earlier in the year we had tried the other side of this coin in the Song of Ice whiskey, and it was (thanks to a rusty nail) well received, and we wanted to make sure to grab a bottle of this to tell people what to buy before this is likely gone. However not everyone can win the game of thrones, and this is by far the weaker of the two.
This does have one of the dreaded ‘kickstart’ pour spouts that have accumulated only ire on this fair website. We got around that with some clippers, but even the results are not terribly pretty. In all, fuck you. Now let’s get to the whiskey itself.
There is a rule of design where you put the most valuable information closer to the top-left as most people look there first (obviously our Arabic or Japanese readers would disagree among others). As such we too could not ignore the elephant that is is apparently the official spirit for golf, the King’s Game, or as we call it – a good walk spoiled. (One of our reviewers does occasionally golf, but we’re not sorry)
We wanted to post this at the end of the final season, but given how badly that went down we decided to let heads cool. (Get it?) The reason being that we actually want to recommend this to you dear readers, and it’s hard to do that with the amount of vitriol that was swirling around.
Caol Ila is a name even if you’ve never seen it on a shelf or bought yourself (unlikely but go with us here) it’s surely cropped on the list of essential sprits, a common marker in blended scotches, and one of the premiere Islay scotches – (one of the older ones too). We, however, have yet to review it – well until now.
When one thinks of Dewar’s one often thinks of the more popular and widespread White Label. Instead of this one which has a label that’s wait. The White Label is a budget scotch, that frankly fails to compete with the likes of Johnnie Walker Red or Famous Grouse, but what if you actually give every whiskey the time to do its work.
We mentioned the week before about giving out a gift for the Christmas season (we know it’s April, friends in other states does this), and this is the companion piece – the gift to the lounge. We are willing to admit that in a blind buy we got better than we gave. While there are some niggling details here to stop this from being a darling, it’s a fine gift.
This was purchased for a friend as a Christmas gift, it was given to them in late April and then (among another 2 gifts) was forgotten here. So having taken some initial notes the night before, and a follow-up glass we bring you something unique. However much like that bent fork in your silverware drawer that you hate but won’t throw out, there are some downsides.
