A very difficult one today. We’ve ventured into the realm of whiskies that diverge from the  typical distillery style, so it’s probably only going to get harder and harder from now on.

Sniff:

Auchentoshan 16, Finest Bourbon Matured

Very grainy and dry with a bit of alcohol bite on the nose. Bread, cookie dough, croutons. I think I even get a incredibly small hint of smoke. The kind that can come from cask charring as well as peat. Fried lemon zest too, if such a thing exists. After a while I get a hint of balsamic vinegar, chicken stock and salt.

Sip:
Dry with loads of cereal. Some alcohol burn, vanilla and pastry. I don’t find many flavours, but the ones I find I kind of like.

Swallow:
Fairly sharp at first but mellows rather quickly. Again, lots of cereal and grain. Cookies, bread, wood spices, allspice (more or less the same, I know) and a little bit of spiciness.

For me, it’s impossible to pin down what it is. I don’t have any semblance of an educated guess, so I went for a distillery that I usually associate with a very grainy, cerealy profile: Deanston. I picked one from the Whiskybase list at 53.4%, 19 years old.

It turned out to be Auchentoshan 16, ‘Finest Bourbon Matured’. Before, I used to live this dram. Yes I had it before, and even more shameful, I have it sitting in my cupboard. I rated it at 80 points on the rather weird 100 point scale. If I tasted it from upstairs, I guess it would have been higher, for old time’s sake.