Highland Park, Ledaig and Boutique-y Canada

Welcome back for another tasty month of whisky and this week we are in for a treat. My advice for this month though is not to drink them all on the same night if you want to make the most out of them. The Ledaig is fairly smokey, and will take flavour away from the other two, and the Highland Park is cask strength, which will make most supermarket whiskies taste like water after tasting it. And the Canadian Sherry is so sweet you just want to be able to enjoy it fully!

If anyone is interested in full bottles of any of these Drams, let me know via email or through the socials @MrDramMan and I can look at ordering additional full bottles for you to purchase on request.

Lets get started and today we are starting with the Tobermory Ledaig 10. Ledaig (pronounced le-chig) is part of Tobermory's peated range on the Isle of Mull, and it us a superb introductory Dram into peat, smoke and Ledaig in general. On the nose you straight away get that smokiness like sweetened cigar smoke, combined with pine wood notes with hints of iodine. The initial taste and mouthfeel can be overpowering if you are not used to it, like that first drag on a cigar. Rich spice, charred oak, notes of fresh soil in the morning and followed by a black pepper as we go into the finish. This goes into the medium length finish, pepper, spice and lingering peat smoke that slowly dissipates. Great Dram for a good price, for me this is an essential for any whisky shelf or cupboard. 86/100

Next we have a bottle from That Boutique-y Whisky Company's brand new core range, the Canadian Corn Whisky 8yr old. This company, for anyone who doesn't know or hasn't had anything from them before, are and independent bottler that get amazing and interesting casks from all over the world, all limited release bottings and most of them under 500 bottles per release. This new 5 bottle core range, are new regular release bottlings twice annually, each circa around 1000L (roughly 1400-1500 bottles twice a year). As well as this 8yr Canadian corn Whisky, there is also an 8yr Islay, 12yr Speyside, 18yr Highland and a 30yr Blend. This Canadian Corn Whisky has been matured for 8yrs entirely in Oloroso sherry casks, before being bottled at 45.8%, the whisky sweet spot. These guys know what they're doing. This is the epitome of a sherry bomb, on the nose you can smell the sherried wood oozing through this amber liquid full of fruit pastries and honey nectar. The moment it hits your tongue you get Canadian maple syrup, sherried oak, sweet ginger and maraschino cherries. Finishing with brown sugar and and baked fruits. 85/100

If you enjoyed this and want to try the full core range, go to the Drams page on the website and purchase the full set (don't forget to use your individual members discount code)

Our final dram tonight isn't for the faint hearted: Highland Park's Cask strength (63.3%abv) is part of a yearly limited release - this being the first release of from the series (they are currently on release No.4 and Release No.1 is now only available at auction). From the off, try this as it is to begin with, then if it's too much, add a couple of drops of room temp water to bring down that abv and open up the flavours more. In terms of amount of water, if you don't have a pipette, a teaspoon is plenty for a 30ml sample of this strength. These releases are drawn straight out of the cask pretty much and bottled up, to the extent that in the bottle you can actually see small remnants of the casks. At full strength you get rich brown sugar, oak and mild smoke. The mouthfeel (if you handle the burn) follows with honeyed ginger and apricots with peppery autumnal spice. With water added it brings out the nutmeg and vanilla flavour more. And finished with a warming and lingering mixed spice and vanilla note that goes on for a while, with the water that finish is more medium in length and much softer. I love this, but I really enjoy a strong cask strength release. I would be interested to know your opinions in the comments below as I understand this might not be everyones pleasant experience. For me 89/100