Auchroisk 10yo, Flora and Fauna, 43% abv.

In the early 90's United Distillers Vintners,  which would later become powerhouse Diageo, "haphazardly" released a series of bottles to showcase their portfolio. Whisky critic Michael Jackson later nicknamed this collection "Flora and Fauna" based on the illustrations on the bottle labels and it has stuck since then. There are I believe 26 different bottlings, all at low strength and suggested food coloring. This bottling is one of the few OB releases out there although Diageo has included it in their special annual releases as of late.

Nose: strong notes of honey, apples, purple grapes, grape skin, light honey dew and other fleshy melons sans cantaloupe.

Palate: earthy tobacco, light steamed lotus leaves, both get stronger with each sip, no fruits, no smoke.

Finish: short, no flavors really come to the fore.

A decent dram, pretty typical scotch stuff. I can understand why it consistently scores on the lower end of modern tasters.

Grade: C

Whiskyanalysis.com, 8.16 ± 0.09 on 4 reviews
Whiskyfun.com, Serge, sgp:262, 78 points
Thewhiskyphiles.com, Berry Bradford, 85/100

Image courtesy of Eric Yee.

Eric Yee

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