Ardmore 12-year-old Premier Barrel (Douglas Laing) / 46%/ 0.7l

Premier Barrel Selection from the Douglas Laing & Co. portfolio is one of the most impressively packaged whisky lines.

It is released in old-fashioned stoneware decanters, always accompanied by a short verse referring to the specific whisky and expressed using alliteration. All whiskies in the Premier Barrel series are bottled with a natural colour and without chill filtration at 46% abv. The Ardmore 12 years old presented here is a single cask edition limited to 284 bottles (or rather stoneware). Built in 1898 by Wm Teacher & Sons, Ardmore Distillery is now owned by Beam Suntory and equipped with four pairs of stills produces 5.5 million litres of distillate per year.

Aroma: sweet and smoky, vanilla, caramel, milk fudge, lemon peel, apples, a handful of fresh herbs, a pinch of salt and pepper.

Palate: peat smoke and ash, vanilla, toffee, lemon peel, apples, pears, white pepper, ginger, salted peanuts and oak.

Finish: quite long, with notes of vanilla, lemon peel, green apples, licorice, herbs and peat smoke.