Tasting Notes: Macleod’s: Island Single Malt

Macleod’s: Island Single Malt (Scottish Island Single Malt Whisky: 40% ABV)

Visual: Deep, heavy gold. Very slow, medium thickness streaks.

Nose: Salt. Wet greenery. Subtle fudge. Brown bread. Very clean. Lightly medicinal. Lightly peppery. Water adds light sulphur.

Body: Peppery. Slight alcohol. Soft lime. Crushed rocks. Salt. Unleavened bread. Light vanilla. Water adds peppercorns. More water adds custard and caramel.

Finish: Unleavened bread. Peppery. Water adds slight charred oak and slight gin. More water adds light custard and caramel. More charred oak. Cinder toffee.

Conclusion: Another call for the use of water here. Neat this is another ok but simple whisky. Quite clean, pretty smooth. Has a salty, lightly medicinal character that marks out a lot of the Island distilleries. Predominantly though it is just a peppery, medicinal dram.

Ok, so on the good side it shows the Island style, and is smooth for the low cost, but it is nothing really exciting.

So, water play time.

Water takes out the little alcohol character it had while accentuating some of the more medicinal notes. More importantly it brings out a slight sweetness and a thickness previously lacking. It doesn’t radically change the experience, but it gives contrast and grip that makes it much more enjoyable.

Still not stand out – has a few rough edges in the finish, but nicely shows the clean, salty island character without any real peat infusion.

Not bad, not stand out. Probably a weaker entry in the series but it does the job.

Background; Third of the Macleod’s regional whiskey minis. Yeah, while they have not blown me away, for the competitively low cost they come in at they have amused me enough that I keep grabbing another region I have not tried from them yet. So the Island region – more a set of regions as they have quite a diverse set depending on where they come from, but hey, its a way of grouping them. Anyway went with IDLES: Joy As An Act Of Resistance as music. Finally going to see them live soon and very excited about it. Bottle was grabbed from Independent Spirit.

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Tasting Notes: Macleod’s : Lowland Single Grain

Macleod’s : Lowland Single Grain (Scotland Lowland Single Grain Whisky: 40% ABV)

Visual: Deep, slightly darkened gold. Fast thick streaks come from the spirit.

Nose: Alcohol air. Clean. Vanilla. Muesli.

Body: Light and smooth front. Alcohol jelly touch to the middle, but not heavy. Jelly babies Marshmallow. Water adds white chocolate. Toasted teacakes. Buttery notes.

Finish: Tinned tropical fruit. Clean. Vodka. White chocolate. Apricot. Water adds more white chocolate. Some chocolate cake. Sugar dusting.

Conclusion: You know, considering the dark gold colour this has, I was expecting a bit more to the flavour it comes with. Or at least a bit more weight to it. Ok, yes this is a lowland single grain, but man this looked utterly soaked in its bourbon ageing.

Instead, without water, this is a fairly clean, smooth spirit. It is a tad alcohol touched, but not too much, just a bit more than you would expect from a 40% abv lowland. It is kind of vodka with whisky flavours added in style more than anything else.

So, yeah, this definitely needs water in order to get it going. Which is no real surprise with the exception of the aforementioned colour of the spirit. I’m guessing that this isn’t old spirit, despite it being generally smooth, so a bit of water always helps, and this is doubly true with grain whisky.

Now water makes this a fluffy, marshmallow, lightly sweet thing – against a still sweet, but bready toasted teacake backing. It is still nothing like what you would expect from the darker gold colour, but, oh yeah, this is some easy drinking fun.

It is still not up there at brilliant, the tail end finish is kind of neutral alcohol which is .. meh – but generally it is a gentle, sweet, light fluffy thing. In fact it very much shows the bourbon influence – maybe that is all that is shown – like a lot of grain whisky the base is very neutral, so nearly all if not all the flavour is from the oak.

Still, it is nice bourbon ageing. It is very much a one style whisky, and very much needs water, and even with that has a few off notes buuut generally you will find it an easy drinking, sweet and fun whisky for a fairly decent price.

I dig it.

Background: I can’t actually find much on this whisky. I can find a lot on Macleod’s Single malt regions range, but, while this is visually very similar, and comes from the lowland region, this is in fact a single grain whisky. Which does not get listed with the regional single malts for obvious reasons. Anyway, there are not many lowland single malts, which I guess is why they went with a single grain for their pick for this – I’ve only had a few single grains, and while very different from single malt they have earned their place. Tend to be much more influenced by oak ageing than base spirit in my experience. Anyway- have been playing the utter hell out of Celeste for a while, so went with Celeste: farewell OST for drinking music. Such a good game. This was another one grabbed from Independent Spirit.

Tasting Notes: Macleod’s Highland Single Malt Whisky

Macleod’s Highland Single Malt Whisky (Scottish Highland Single Malt Whisky: 40% ABV)

Visual: Deep, heavy gold. Medium speed and thickness streaks comes from the spirit.

Nose: Honey. Toffee. Wood shavings. Thick. Stewed apricot. Water adds more wood and slight sulphur.

Body: Honey. White grapes. Toffee. Custard. Apricot. Dry oak. Malt drinks. Water makes very smooth. Similar notes but with slight sulphur.

Finish: Drier oak. Honey. Golden syrup. Slightly milky coffee. Malt drinks. Pepper. Water makes smoother and adds apricot.

Conclusion:This is a solid Highland whisky, a good pick to show what a Highland whisky emphasises and concentrates on. It’s heavy on the sweetness, but pretty smoothly delivered. There being no age statement for this, especially when the previous version was listed as an 8 year, had me worried, and in fact expecting that I was going to run into some serious roughness, but none came. In fact it is smoother than a lot older whiskies I have encountered.

There are lots of honey and golden syrup notes, a bit of toffee – it is hitting a lot of the thick and sweet notes over and over. Hints of apricot and grape fruity sweetness expand while still keeping on theme. There is no real alcohol burn behind that, resulting in a real easy going crowd please of a whisky.

Instead there is a touch of oak, and a quite peppery style into the finish which helps keeps things balanced. Water makes it even smoother, not that it really needed that, but on the down side also makes it a tad sulphur touched – but only very minor so not a huge impact. Still better neat though I would say. There was never any rough edges or closed character that needed water to deal with it.

It is good, solidly sweet, but with slightly more base malt drinks to milky coffee backing mid body to ease that down, and a nicely peppery finish. Nothing unexpected, but pretty cheap for something nicely smooth, and it shows the highland style well.

A good introduction, or a good general drinking dram, if nothing unusual. No complaints, just not a stand out must have either. Pretty cheap and good quality for the price-tag though.

Background: This was a bit of a random pick up – Independent Spirit had a bunch of Macleod single malt minis in – each without a listed distillery, just identified by region, and it was fairly cheap, so I picked one up on a whim. Went with Highland as it is one I tend to try less, so felt like expanding my experience a bit. So, no idea of distillery, so little to prep expectations going in. Googling tells me this used to be listed as an 8 year, but now is a no age statement, go guess is that it has some fairly young whisky in there. Music wise I went with Slipknot – Iowa. Possibly not thematically appropriate for the whisky, but their recent album properly got me back into Slipknot.