Bunnahabhain 12 Year Old

A little sulphur there? That's too bad.

So far I haven't noticed sulphur in Bunnahabhain 12.

@Victor Lucky you!) Mine does have that matchstick note to it. It's not unpleasant, though

I can ignore a little sulphur in a whisky and still enjoy it, though noticing it will always lower my score. More than a little sulphur ruins a whisky for me. Burnt matchstick in the nose usually signals much worse sulphur bitterness in the finish. At this point in the evolution of my taste sulphur never tastes good to me. Sulphur can be well-disguised by moderate to heavy peat, though, and peat can reduce sulphur's ability to seize control of the attention.

I sort of miss the days when I didn't sense sulphur so acutely. That ship has sailed, though, and I will never be able to tolerate sulphured whiskies again.

@Victor some modern whisky lovers don't mind it at all. They even see it as a norm in sherried whiskies

@Georgy, yes, some industry hacks would rationalize the current low standards for Scottish wine-cask matured whiskies in this way. I would call that whisky industry apologism. A combination of pretending that everything is fine and up to top standards and rationalization about the part that isn't. When sulphur is the norm in Scottish sherried whiskies then sherried whiskies as a category have been flushed down the toilet. These wine cask Scottish malts do not taste like they did 60 years ago. To tell the difference drink some Macallan bottled 50 years ago, or some Amrut Intermediate Sherry. It is unfortunate that it takes a whisky which is not Scotch to exemplify perfectly clean sherry.

Many do not smell or taste the sulphur. They are somewhat lucky. It doesn't ruin 80% of the Scottish wine cask malts for them the way it does for someone like me.

@Victor It's just something that is inevitable. This era is not really about quality. And this can be said about almost everything today) So...it is what it is.

@Georgy, @Victor, Sulfur tainted whisky is inexcusable. Sulfur, in any amount, should not be detectable in the finished product. Complacency by consumers leads to a sense of entitlement by producers. I can tolerate NAS whisky because I can choose to avoid it, but sulfur tainted whisky is detectable only after the bottle has been opened; a slap in the face that can't be avoided.

@Georgy - My bottle drank earlier this year had a bit of a nip when first opened. After a month or two it became much milder and softened down considerably. I reckon I'd have scored it 83 ish at first but would have been up towards 87-88 by the end.

The dried fruit notes really came out and I'd often take the cork out just to have a whiff! I loved the saltyness on this one as well.

@RianC totally agree.