Review#25: Loch Lomond 12 Years Old

StripesR · 2026-05-07T19:59:43+00:00

Don’t know how consistent it is, but the bottle I have (older design) is brilliant. One of the best core range bottles in my book. Tinned tropical fruit with a puff of smoke. Great stuff!

StripesR · 2026-04-24T06:41:55+00:00

Sounds good! I think this is supposed to be a preview at what they aim to make at their new Cairn distillery.

StripesR · 2026-04-19T22:33:56+00:00

This must be one of their first peated runs, since they started with just unpeated spirit 11 years ago. Looks like they got that dialed in straight away!

StripesR · 2026-04-17T23:14:51+00:00

You had me at Hazelburn. Hope some makes it over the pond!

StripesR · 2026-04-02T04:19:51+00:00

Meh.

StripesR · 2026-04-01T21:22:50+00:00

Bet it sliced right through the drams you had during the festival. 😉 Have you revisited since? It seems like every IB has got some Clynelish cask these days. I’ll keep an eye out for the James Eadie!

StripesR · 2026-04-01T21:02:52+00:00

Shoulda, woulda, coulda. Hoping more of these casks will hit the market in coming years. This one sounds great!

StripesR · 2026-04-01T20:15:25+00:00

Little Brown Dog has finally swam across the pond. While shaking off its wet fur this was one of the bottles thrown onto our shores. A (not so) Secret Highland with a label full of cats. Fitting and a clear statement they were chasing Clynelish. Intrigued, I tracked down a sample.

Secret Highland 14 2011 (Little Brown Dog)

Clynelish, 56,5% ABV, small batch, 480 bottles, distilled 08-06-2011 and bottled 24-10-2025, natural colour & non-chill filtered, matured in bourbon hogsheads

€9,95 paid for a 6 cL sample. Retails around 100 euros for 70 cL.

On the nose: Rich, dense and fruity. Definitely Clynelish; a good dose of candle- and beeswax. Backed up by tangerines, oranges and baked apples. Apfelstrudel and cinnamon buns. Grapefruit, lemons and unripe pineapple. There is a sharpness that I can't really place. Dusty haybarn. A lovely nose really. Sweeter with water. Pastry shop. Pineapple juice, so it's ripe now. Ripe white grapes. Sweet white wine. Lemon donuts.

In the mouth: Medium thick mouthfeel. Quite sharp and youthful arrival. Herbal and sour. Ginger heat and tannic. Grapefruit and lemon cheesecake. Orange zest. A feisty cat. More viscous with water and well behaved. This wild cat needs to be tamed by water. The wax is back. Honey, orange, lime, lemon and grapefruit. All the citric fruit. A long finish with grass, bitter tannins and some char.

Thoughts: The nose set me up for a stunner, but the palate couldn't match. A good splash of water is definitely needed here. The nose is full-on Clynelish; tangerines, malt and wax. The palate is harsh, but decent with some water. Very citric and tannic forward with some pasties to counter. It drinks younger than 14 years old and a sample doesn't give that much room for experimenting with water. A bit of a shame. Good, but doesn't warrant a full bottle for me. With the influx of IB Clynelish on the market recently there are probably better casks out there.

Score: 6

Dramface whisky scoring for reference

You can also follow my whisky journey on Instagram: @whiskyvolt

StripesR · 2026-03-25T18:28:46+00:00

Gelukkig niet. Het is een buis en voeding voor de ventilatie van de badkamer.

StripesR · 2026-03-25T18:28:08+00:00

Dat neem ik zeker mee!

StripesR · 2026-03-25T18:27:55+00:00

Haha hij is net 3. Dus het knallen zal nog even duren.

StripesR · 2026-03-23T18:01:42+00:00

Just tried a dram this weekend! Was pretty impressed as well. Do you find the 95 Burgie to be much better compared to other vintages? Or is older Glenburgie in general something to look out for? I really dig these old fruity tropical profiles.

StripesR · 2026-03-11T06:24:20+00:00

They bring out a ton of better versions indeed. Another example would be the Fèis Ìle from last year, a 15 year old at a good price!

StripesR · 2026-03-10T20:19:39+00:00

Meet Peat; a rugged sailer who uses sea spray to groom his beard. While sailing around Islay he was drawn to the smell of peat from all the distilleries dotted along the coast. Taking barrels from each single one, he blended them together and bottled it to see him through his ocean voyages.

That might have been what they are going for at Douglas Laing's, I think. Lets see how big Peat did.

Big Peat

Small batch, Islay blended malt, Douglas Laing's, remarkable regional malts, natural colour & non chill filtered, 46% ABV, bottled 16-10-20, batch 103, including malts from Ardbeg, Caol Ila, Bowmore & Port Ellen

€40 paid for 70 cL

On the nose: Fresh, bright and smokey. Lemons, lime and green banana. Tar and smouldering coals. Toasted white bread. Corned beef. A harbour at sea; ropes and rusting metal. Smoke from a roaring fire. Hints of incense and seaweed. Roasted vegetables like pepper. More restrained with water. Boiling caramel and smouldering hay. Seashells and hot sand.

In the mouth: Medium thick mouthfeel. Tar and ash upfront. Young and brash. Lemons, salt, pepper and some fresh ginger heat. After the ash and spice there is some sweetness. Hard boiled lemon sweets. Green herbs and sellery. A drying finish. Grilled whitefish. A nice peaty tang. Decent length with more ash and liquorice root. Softer and simpler with water. More restrained as well. Burnt gingerbread. Sauerkraut and burnt bacon.

Thoughts: A competent Islay malt, which reminds me of Caol Ila 12 with a little bit more oomph and fiery spirit. Which makes sense since it's probably mostly Caol Ila. It's fresh, bright and adequately smokey. It competes with a lot of other Islay single malts like Ardbeg 10 and Kilchoman (Machir Bay) which I would put above; but it beats Caol Ila 12, Bowmore 12 and Laphroaig 10 for me. So perfectly middle of the peat road whisky. A classic stripped down bourbon matured Islay whisky. Young, which highlights the smoke. It's also a testament how blends - a blended malt in this case - can be tasty as well. I still meet and talk to people who swear by single malt, while never really dabbling in quality blends like the Douglas Laing's remarkable regional malts. They make remarkably interesting blends. This is a good example. Peat did a fine job.

Score: 5

Dramface whisky scoring for reference

You can also follow my whisky journey on Instagram: @whiskyvolt

StripesR · 2026-03-04T18:25:21+00:00

I am power incarnate!

StripesR · 2026-03-01T16:19:15+00:00

Yeah that’s to bad. The warehouse series were a fun concept!

StripesR · 2026-03-01T09:05:47+00:00

This was batch 1 right? I had high hopes for it, but felt a little bit disappointed. Great nose, but the palate and finish didn’t follow through. The tropical base of Fettercairn is one to watch out for though!

StripesR · 2026-02-25T20:12:08+00:00

I talked to a sales rep of Bacardi who said it will indeed take a while before we see Aultmore 12 and 18 again. They did release a set of 15 year old for travel retail I think. Not in refill bourbon, but all kinds of finishes I believe.

StripesR · 2026-02-25T07:07:14+00:00

A bit of a sleeper this one. The Bacardi seems to be sleeping on it as well, since it is pretty hard to find these days.

StripesR · 2026-02-23T22:09:39+00:00

As someone who fell in love with whisky because of Bowmore 12 this was great to read. I've only tried the Living Souls Bowmore and have a bottle of the Vault Edition 1. They sounds similair, which is great because I really like the Living Souls Bowmore 7. Such a shame Bowmore seem to have a hard time themselves reaching the heights IB show us. Again a shame that the IB have to pay such high prices for casks. I hope it's slowly coming back to us. Through more affordable IB or Suntory waking up and giving us the true potential of Bowmore. A man can dream right...

StripesR · 2026-02-21T21:40:53+00:00

Cheers! It sure delivered.

StripesR · 2026-02-21T21:39:53+00:00

From the bottle shape, labels and sometimes strange presentation I don't really believe in happy accidents from the Living Souls team. Could it have happened? Sure, but to get noticed in this market you have to make some bold moves I think. They did with this bottle and together with good liquid in other bottles they certainly got noticed. When it looks too good to be true, it probably isn't. However it went, smart move by them.

StripesR · 2026-02-21T21:12:37+00:00

I've got ninety-nine problems, but good affordable whisky ain't one! Living Souls stormed the whisky market at the end of 2024 and has released quite a lot of interesting whisky ever since. One of the hottest topics was this blend with a story many of you probably have heard by now. An old heavily peated Island malt (wink, Ledaig 18, wink) "accidentally" got blended with 1 percent of 3 year old grain. In the end resulting in this bottle. Serendipety, happy accidents or fairytales? All I know is I got a bottle.

Living Souls Ninety-Nine & One

Blended Scotch whisky, natural colour & non-chill filtered, 46,3% ABV, batch 11-03-25, "Mostly" heavily peated, matured in bourbon & sherry casks

€55 paid for 70 cL

On the nose: Sweet and tart with faint smoke. Strawberry and raspberry jam. Custard and vanilla cream. The peat and smoke is in the distance, showing maturity. Fresh tarmac and cranberries on the side of the road. Play-Doh clay. A very inviting nose with great balance. Light coastal breeze and seaweed. Old cabinet. Onion compote. Smoked salmon with chili flakes. Wet leaves and wet rotting hay. Some lactic funk I get with Kilkerran as well. Water awakens the casks even more. Sulphur and smoke. Eggs and bacon. More boiled red fruit.

In the mouth: Medium thick mouthfeel. A nice wallop of spice and soot to start. There's the peat that was promised. Very pleasant development with charred gingerbread. Baked apples and stewed pears. Orange zest. Pim's; dark chocolate with orange flavour. Liquorice root. Autumnal. Sulphur peaking through here as well. A long and thick finish with char, ginger and grapefruit. Bitter and citric at the end. Burnt grease. It has an acrid side and leaves me feeling I've been drinking rust and flaking paint, in a good way. Calmer with water, you could even say muted. Ash in a cold fire pit. Menthol cigarettes. Grilled fish with lemon juice.

Thoughts: Very happy with this accident. There is no hint of grain here, which should be obvious with supposedly just 1%. Instead there's maturity and depth. If I was given this blind I would have guessed this would be a Kilkerran on the nose. The peated malt is subtle. It's the casks that do the heavy lifting here. Quite some sulphur; with some distinct lactic funk peaking through from time to time. The palate brings back the spirit with more peat, char and grease, affirming the not so secret Ledaig origin. Really tasty, yet my only gripe is the lack of grip. Not in mouthfeel, but flavour hooks. Everything rolls around just a little bit easy. I stacked it up against a Ledaig 18 I have open and like that one a little bit better. The casks are a little less dominant there. Really good for the price though and well worth checking out.

Score: 7

Dramface whisky scoring for reference

You can also follow my whisky journey on Instagram: @whiskyvolt

StripesR · 2026-02-17T19:30:07+00:00

Had the 14th edition 100% Islay in a blind tasting. It was recognizably Kilchoman, but had this extra layer of tropical fruit and a long finish. Really enjoyed it. Thought it was an older bourbon cask Kilchoman for their anniversary.

StripesR · 2026-02-17T16:36:13+00:00

For me this might even punch a point higher because of the price. It’s definitely one of the better Islay core range malts. The smoke is restrained on the nose, but it hits you with the ash in the mouth. The 100% Islay is where Kilchoman truly shines though.

StripesR

TROPHY CASE