Someone recently introduced me to a book, The Whiskey Classified that isolated different flavor groups in single malt scotch whiskeys. It’s an interesting book, well worth the read. One thing I discovered as I read it is that my palate prefers the flavors: Peat, Smoke, Medicinal, Tobacco. I capitalize these as they are like proper names of personal friends of mine. Fruity, Florally, Honey and Spice are all nice too (not to me), but when I get Medicinal it makes me feel better.
I haven’t tried every type of single malt out there but that is a life mission of mine. So far my favorite “every day” scotches are as follows.
Lagavulin 16 year
Laphroaig 18 year
Ardbeg Corryvreckan
I will probably blog a lot on this topic.
After all these, we end up at similar places. Lagavulin 16 is by far my favorite scotch. Just spent christmas getting know it a little better by getting a bottle. If you haven’t done it yet, try it with a cigar. The smokyness disappears and it ends up tasting like an XO cognac.
I see that Talisker isn’t on the list. Not my favorite, but is pretty unique and hard to peg-down. It tastes different everytime I have it.
Jeff, thanks for the comment. I’ll tell you something about Talisker that makes it unappetizing for me. It is on the smoky side but it has a very strong spice or pepper flavor component to it. I do not like pepper flavored alcohol. So for me Talisker is out. I have had cigars with my scotch but these days I worry about my mortality and don’t need the carcinogens. Keep in touch!