Batch 30

Very sweet, with delicate and rather beautiful crystallised ginger, sherbet, lemon, and rosehips though even at low strength it has some heat.  Water is not advisable however.

Very, very soft with a fresh and almost briny note. Disappears with water.

Ethereal.

Fantastic ‘whispering’ nose, but the palate has no substance. 

A doze in the afternoon is suddenly disturbed as a shuttlecock hits you on the head. The dream fades into the air.   

Immediate bold dynamic smokiness balanced with shellfish-like sweetness and a little touch of heather blossom, then bay/laurel. While it shows a light succulence there’s real freshness here, mainly because there’s no oak on show.

Big smoke from the outset with a peppery edge. You struggle slightly to find a way through anything but the smoke when neat, but there is some oiliness. Water pushes the smoke back to the back palate where it sits in a foggy sulk. A little angular, but sound.

Spent peat ashes the morning after.

Fresh. Would make a great highball. 

Eating spaghetti vongole on the seawall after a storm.

An odd meaty, muttony nose with some burnt edges. Somewhat agricultural with typical Jura rigidity. With water it becomes nutty and cereal-like. 

Better than the nose. There’s some cattle cake/pot ale aspect to it which while unusual isn’t that unpleasant. Still unyielding however. Water washes it all away.

Slightly metallic.

Hard, farmyard-like and simple.

Munching on a slightly burnt Scotch pie near the cowshed.

Very Ledaig in its weird mix of robust smoke, a whiff of bashed neeps, wellies, and oil. Water makes it much more orthodox adding in brown bread sweetness to a soft animalic warmth.

Neat, it smoulders from the off, showing good maturity while the farmyard element continues before a soft succulent central element anchors things in the centre of the mouth. Water lightens proceedings, and brings out some oxidised mature qualities. Soft, but still bulky.

Smoky and long.

It is weirdly loveable. Kind of wrong, kind of dirty, but compelling.

Earth, Wind and indeed Fire. Farewell Maurice White.

Hot, and therefore slightly hard to get into. Has a naked smoky quality (i.e. there’s little oak to get in the way) and while it could be no more than autosuggestion there’s lemon and a lovely vinegary, shrub-like/sorrel note alongside rockpool-like salinity. Opens into ripe melon, but slightly austere.

A considerably sweeter distillate than you’d expect from the nose with a certain soft juiciness balancing the shoreline phenols. Cool, clean, slightly peppery.

Salty.

Easy drinking (especially with soda water) but I long for a bit more cask to add another layer of complexity.

Guddling among the rocks on the west coast. 

Clean, quite crisp with some digestive biscuits, a little heat and then candied fruits, almond milk, fruit pie ooze, before flax oil and melon. Rather lovely.

A lightly perfumed start then this clean and slightly green oiliness runs down the centre. It needs water which magnifies the potpourri element before it firms into violet root. It becomes almost gin-like. 

Perfumed.

A mixed bag. Glorious nose, but the sudden switch on the palate makes things a bit incoherent.

Drinking gin in a garden centre.