Sorry, stock photo because my phone was sent in for servicing.

Distillery: Linkwood

Region: Speyside

Price: ~$15/20ml (dram from a bar)

Cask Type: Ex-bourbon

ABV: 57.7

Chill-filtered: No

Color: 0.5, yellow gold (natural colour).

Rested for not that much time because I was in a rush, before drunk neat in a tulip.

Nose: Chocolate steamed cake, rye bread, meringue

Palate: Thin-medium texture. Chocolate orange, cake sugar icing, spicy-savoury-sweet Chinese five-spice cookies, green tea, a bit of brininess appears on the last dregs.

Finish: Generally short to almost non-existent. Flash of raw egg white, then nothing... then a pop of rum-soaked raisins. Too little, too late.

Conclusion: Very eggy, but not in that god-awful sickly sweet way I find in Auchentoshan Three Wood. Nonetheless, it's like some badly-executed molecular gastronomy deconstruction of eggnog and cake. My problem with the chocolate was that the chocolate on the palate wasn't rich enough to quite anchor this whiskey. It's like store-bought chocolate orange, with a hint of that sharp Hershey butyric acid funk cutting through it, not intensely chocalatey and earthy chocolate ganache/fudge. I have no qualms with the eggy chocolate steamed cake note on the nose.

Nonetheless, as a young cask strength, the direction it is taking with the notes is broadly palatable, cohesive and balanced. It just falls a bit short in how the details fit together, as well as on the hollowness of the finish. Would caveat that I left it for slightly less time than I typically would before starting to drink it, so it might mellow out with some air. I don't think I would add water, the texture and finish are thin enough as it is despite the strength. Zero alcohol burn at this strength and age, which is to its credit as well.

If it were named by the SMWS: Eggnog Deconstructed

Score: 78

Scotch Review #19, Whisky Network Review #21

H.Y.