Catching up! I already wrote the tasting notes below so I could easily publish them from my holiday address, and then I forgot all about it. That must mean the weekend has been good, right?

The drawback is that I got no points at all. I hadn’t decided upon the distillery to guess but I expect not guessing anything didn’t change much to the overall result.

A nice Ben Nevis 15. Image from Whiskybase

Sniff:
On the nose it’s pretty gentle, with almost no scent coming off it at first. I even put this in a wet glass, which means the necessary drops of water are already in there. After a minute or two it really opens up but gives off a lot of nail polish remover. Some oak too and a light spiciness. It does stay on the alcohol though, but gives chocolate after fifteen minutes or so.

Sip:
Holy mother of God! This is sharp. It really burns right away, and stays that way for a while. There is some oak behind it, with sweetness and dryness too. Spices in the form of cinnamon and ginger.

Swallow:
It mellows out quite quickly on the finish. The spiciness lingers rather long but there’s oak too.

I wasn’t convinced at first, but I think I like it. The sharpness is a bit too much which puts me off, but the flavours and scents are pretty good. I haven’t made up my mind, though. This does mean that it’s not on the wish list.

Now, finishing this post a couple of days later, I am rather enthusiastic about this one. I looked it up on Whiskybase and saw a price of € 120, which I think is a bit too much for a bottle like this. Especially from a distillery like Ben Nevis that isn’t overly popular. € 80 or so and I would have tried to find it to order it. On the other hand, that Mortlach is still out there too!

Ben Nevis 15, 1996-2012, 51.7%, € 120 but no longer available.