I spotted this bottle in a shop during my 2016 Scotland visit. It’s a distillery that I was not familiar with which always catches my attention and I had never tried a WM Cadenhead bottling so was interested in trying one.

So the bottle usefully comes with it’s own tasting notes, for the nose it states “Dark chocolate; some meatiness along with a good glug of sherry. Bruised bananas; distant smokiness and some maple syrup”. For me I can identify the sherry, dark chocolate and can see where they are coming from with the bananas, I do not get that specifically but do get ripe fleshy fruits. I can also see what they mean with the meatiness too, I would not have initially used that word, but I like it, I’ll stick with it.

Onto the palate and the official notes state “More chocolate, although softer than on the nose. Cinnamon buns; strawberry yoghurt and poached pears.”. Personally I can get pears (never had poached so can’t confirm that) and I get a general summer fruits quality coming through, although this is subtle. There is also a nice spice to it, nothing overpowering but adds nicely to the palate.

The finish is noted as having “Some soft oaky notes along with red fruits. Faint dunnage warehouses with raspberries and lychees”. I get the oaky notes and a bit of spice to go with it but also the summer fruits notes from the palate does continue onto the finish.

It is rare that I read official tasting notes and can honestly say that I agree with them, that one of the great things about whisky, each tastes different to everyone. These tasting notes however were clearly written by someone with a similar palate to myself  (albeit someone with a more sophisticated palate) as I can agree with many of the flavours identified.

Overall it has been a pleasant dram, it has a good body to it, a little heavier than most, with enough complexity there to entertain the palate. It has not blow me away however but I would say that it’s quality does match the price I paid.