During the first Advent period of the lockdowns, back in 2020, my good friend JPH and I decided we wanted to try some awesome whiskies. Online, of course, so we had to get our hands on two sets of samples.

Just before Brexit a massive box came in, with 48 samples of random whiskies that weren’t labeled, just numbered. We did have the Excel sheet explaining what was what, but we tried everything blind.

After those 24 samples were tried, tasted, appraised and rated, we decided that was something to keep up after Christmas-time. The year after we got a pack of the Blind Tasting Competition from Best of Wines, and a box for the 15th anniversary of The Nectar in Belgium. One was very good, the other one wasn’t.

Plans were made for this year, and we decided to do these sample things more often, and in smaller batches. A quarterly advent, so to say. Earlier this year we had a pack of samples from Whisky4All, sometimes we just tried something we already had and shared, and now we’re working our way to this year’s Blind Tasting Competition, while also having a pack of samples from Teun van Wel.

This Lochside is one from Teun, from his massive (but diminishing) stash of Lochside 1981 bottlings.

Sniff:
Insanely fruity, with lots of fresh yellow stuff. Pineapple, apple, dragon fruit, wild peach, white grapes and an unripe mango. There’s a sharpness behind it that belies its complexity, with a slight hint of straw. Grass and clover too, a freshly cut lawn.

Sip:
There’s a bit of a peppery bite, with fresh grain and a bit of oak. Still massively fruity but a bit more sweet than the nose was. More like mango, papaya, cooked apple and a bit of banana. Oak shavings, dry straw, dried wild flowers.

Swallow:
The finish leaves the sweetness behind right away. The hint of white pepper and some alcohol. Straw, grass, fresh yellow fruits like unripe pears and crisp apples. Some wild peaches too.

While it’s not as stellar as one of the best whiskies I tried last year, also from Teun, this is still proof that Lochside 1981 is epic whisky. Massively fruity, layered and complex. I really wish I spent more money on this kind of stuff back in the day, instead of all the random stuff I did buy.

Now if I only learned anything from thoughts like that.

91/100