What Wee Dram are you enjoying now?

[Gillman]

Auchentoshan 12 years old, from one of the three surviving Lowlands distilleries. Despite the three distillations and a relatively high distilling-out proof, the flavour has a pronounced barley note and melds well with the toasty wood effects from the cask. (I hadn't had a malt in a while and my first taste made me think of Colorado Whiskey which is made from all-malted barley albeit it is much younger and aged in new charred oak).

Classy stuff, soft and malty but with the pleasing lightness (relatively) of Lowlands whisky. It reminds me in a way of Buffalo Trace - both are roughly the same age and have a malty smooth palate.

I used to like single malt a lot and have (or had, again) a fair amount of experience with it. At one point, my palate changed and I preferred bourbon and straight rye, which probably is a permanent change. Still, I like returning to the whiskies occasionally of the countries whence whisky originated, hence my recent forays into some Irish and Scots whiskies.

I do still regularly drink my own Scotch blends, which themselves are probably 80% single malt (a wide range), but a blend and a single malt are two different things.

Gary