A most joyous Ludachristmas has befallen us! We start off the year 2018 with a scotch from our annual gathering of friends for the holidays, and as usual, it’s more scotch. (To complement all the other scotch we review of course). This time it’s a Highland 12 Year that has a bit of strangeness about it.
First, if you did not have obnoxious letting making the fact this is a Highland very apparent, we’d have said it was from another region. The scores will reflect the overall just above par quality here, but we need to first take a look at the bottle a bit more closely.
Look at that text. It’s a fucken hot mess. It’s not clear what they’re intentions were in doing this atrocity, but whatever it was has backfired spectacularly.
What they Say: “Lemon ZEST, toffee apples – and a scent of COCONUT. Our signature SHERRY WOOD brings INTENSITY and richness, while the BOURBON casks add fresh notes of CITRUS and VANILLA. NURTURED then MATURED for 12 YEARS. Natural Colour from time and oaks casks alone.”
Taste: 6.5 – It’s quite light, and the citrus and fruit aspects make it feel more like a Speyside style scotch.
Aftertaste: 6.0 – There is, however, a slightly smoky part of the aftertaste that lingers for quite a bit, but again not much else going on.
Burn/Smooth: 8.0 – It’s defining feature is how smooth it actually is with a little burn at all.
Aroma: 6.0 – While pleasant it’s not bringing a whole lot to the table, and you really need to dig into it to get a smell.
Honesty: 5.0 – They thankfully only have tasting notes rather than further digging into the cave of wankery. The capitalization weirdness though does hurt them, and to be fair tasting notes are still not great.
Mixability: 6.0
W/ Rocks: 6.0 – That bit of ice makes the backend sort of ‘tail out’ more which makes for something nice overall, but it’s not like it became a much better scotch.
Value: 3.5 – Here is where we have to come for blood. While every part of this is certainly an above average, light, slightly smoky whisky – that’s far too much for what’s offered.
Google Shop Average: $51
Website: https://www.glengoyne.com/
Reviewer Scores:
BuffaloJern: 6.0
DJ Lvl: 6.0
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Metric Score: 41/70 |+| Metric Average: 5.86 |+| Reviewer Average: 6.0
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Final Thoughts: As always while the scotch may not be the best, enjoying it among friends and family for the holidays almost certainly is. I’d like to say we’ll be starting off this year with more diverse reviews, but the lounge was gifted more scotch so we’ll at least try and space it out for you.
