Scotch Review #75: Bladnoch 10 Year
Distillery: Bladnoch
Region: Lowlands
ABV: 46%
Age: 10 years
Cask Type: Bourbon casks
Price: $43
Color: 0.4, Jounquil/Ripe Corn. Non-Chill Filtered, Natural Color.
Nose (according to the wife): Fresh fruit and cucumber is up front followed by some like a mix of marzipan and fondant. She was referring specifically to the frosting on the cake one of our family friends had at their first birthday of their kiddo. I believe it was fondant with almond and vanilla flavoring mixed into it. The wife also mentioned that you could really smell the alcohol in this one, much moreso than usual.
Palate: It’s warm on the tongue (not “hot”) with a lot of warming spices in it. Cloves and nutmeg really come to mind. Past the warmth, there is an incredibly waxy note coupled with a hint of orange along with something incredibly rich and silky that I can’t quite place. Towards the tail end, there is a nice bit of cookies fresh out of the oven—particularly that flavor you get on the edges that are slightly overdone.
Finish: Medium to short in length. There are some more warming spices and then something…sweaty…as in gym locker room sweat. It’s rather unpleasant. Fortunately, a bit of water gets rid of that note almost immediately and it brings out some much more pleasant notes of ginger snaps with a bit of vanilla frosting.
Conclusion: The Lowlands are a region I haven’t explored a whole lot and when I found this bottle on the shelf while visiting my folks, I figured I’d try it out. For being from the region of gentle whiskies, this was a lot different what I expected. It’s not gentle nor floral whatsoever. It’s packed full of warming spices, starting with cloves and nutmeg and ending with ginger. It felt like I was drinking a hot mug of Christmas Tea rather than a scotch. For the most part though, I will say I enjoyed it. I’m a little disappointed that the fruit and cucumber from the nose really aren’t anywhere else in the whisky but those could just be overpowered by the spices. That sweaty note in the finish was incredibly unpleasant but easily remedied. I’ve had a few whiskies where I’ve had it and said this is a dram for the summer. I’ll say the opposite for this one, this is definitely a dram to have in the dead cold of winter. Would I buy another bottle? Maybe.
Final Score: 77.
On a side note, the box that this came in has got to be the shoddiest box I’ve ever seen a whisky in. It is so incredibly flimsy, dollar store packaging flimsy, bottom shelf whisky boxes are better than this kind of bad. Every single box of this was damaged in the store and I dented them a few more times just by picking up boxes trying to find the least damaged one. While I normally don’t talk about packaging, this one so bad that I had to mention it. Which is a shame since the bottle is really nice and I’ll definitely keeping it after I’m done with the whisky inside.
Scotch whisky review #75, Lowland Review #2, Whisky Network Review #98
Scoring Legend:
- 96-100: The perfect dram, nectar of the gods.
- 90-95: Near perfect, there is something truly special about this whisky.
- 85-89: Amazing, will always try to keep a bottle of this in my collection (if feasible).
- 80-84: Very Good, maybe only one minor nitpick about the whisky keeping it here.
- 75-79: Good, quite enjoyable to drink.
- 70-74: Solid, wouldn’t go out of my way to get it.
- 60-69: Meh, still drinkable.
- Below 59: If you have a bottle of this, start cooking with it instead.
Scotch & Sheen 
