This little Cragganmore caught most people off guard, as far as I know, because it’s a peated Cragganmore. While it is fairly safe to assume that most distilleries do some experimentation with peating their whisky, I didn’t know they did so too at Cragganmore.

It’s a bit of an overlooked distillery, from a fanatic’s perspective. I think this is mostly the case since there are virtually no bottlings available except for the regular 12 year old and the annual Distillers Edition. And, honestly, I wasn’t overly impressed with either when I tried them years ago.

Then this one came along. At a whopping 58.4% ABV, and peated. That I found interesting and luckily, RvB bought a bottle to share, and I got 10cl from that.

Image from Whiskybase

Sniff:
A warm barbecue grill, with some stewed apples, and lots of sweetish smoke. Earthy, woody, slightly grassy, but ultimately quite flat.

Sip:
The palate starts off a bit thin, but it gets very strong and fiery, very fiery. A tad grassy, with apples, smoke and oak.

Swallow:
The finish highlights the smoke even more, without much regard for the other flavors.

I’ve done my best but without exaggerating and getting overly lyrical I couldn’t really make more of it. It’s bit like they dialed up the regular not-so-interesting Cragganmore, and added some peat.

Also, it’s just too thin, too fiery. These two factors push out almost all other flavors and therefore I quite dislike this whisky, to be honest. Gimmicky, but apart from that it’s not much. If you really want to try this, I suggest finding a sample, or a shop with an open bottle.

77/100

Cragganmore 12, Diageo Special Release 2019, 58.4%. Regularly available for around € 85