🥃 Whisky Auctioneer

Smokehead Extra Rare, 40%. This whisky is so very rare that you can only buy 1 litre in any global travel retail outlet worldwide for £45. I managed to source a 6cl sample somehow. Consumed Jan 2022. A suspiciously dark orange amber colour. Aroma is quite good. Some lightly smoked ham / gammon, banana fritter, faint fabric plaster, charred meat. There’s also a milkiness not miles away from strawberry milkshake lurking in the background, but it fortunately never takes hold. In some ways muted, but a good aroma. Taste is easy on impact, slowly moves towards hammy, briney flavours...ham stock. Favours hammy over banana, which is my preference when it comes to these young low abv peated whiskies. Later on it gets some treated wood/ creosote, almost medicinal vibes on the breath which are pleasant. Never quite moves out of second gear but never comes close to being insipid either. Nicely flavoured for something that can only barely be called whisky (being 40%). Very soft but the flavour is always pleasant enough. Better than I anticipated. On the whole this is a good whisky at the price. I might have been less cynical about it if it were 46% and didn't have a silly 'rare' name ... but actually in total fairness it’s tasty and you could do a lot, lot worse. Grew and grew on me, this one. If it's not a decent Lagavulin (and the taste led me in that direction), then it’s a very good Caol Ila. The strong odds are on this being the latter. 3.575/85