Loch Lomond 12 Year Old

Loch Lomond is a factory. There is nothing romantic about this distillery. But since a few years it has new owner who are doing everything in their power to help Loch Lomond shed its questionable reputation and put the whisky back on the map. A new packaging, a new story, but is the whisky any good now? This new 12 Year Old was bottled in 2015. It is lightly peated (about 12 to 15 ppm) and matured on three cask types.

The nose starts quite good on apples, pears and vanilla, joined by some wood shavings. Second quite some citrus kicks in. Absolutely no off notes, which is something I always had with previous Loch Lomond releases. Good. Docile and far from exciting, but good.

I do get quite a bit of wood on the palate from the start. As if I am licking lemon juice from a plank. Bakery spices keep it feisty, but it also quickly develops a sour note. Vanilla, again.

In the finish I get mostly ginger, oak and lemon juice with a hint of stale lager beer (sound worse than it is, but still).

Let’s not call this a grand malt, but it is quite an improvement over the stuff they released several years ago.