Nose: Very unusual stuff! Needs some agitating before the nose really starts to come to the fore and i'd suggest avoiding a tumbler with this dram in order that you catch it. There's a sweet syrup note, maybe honey or jam, and there's something of the outdoors but I can't place it. Stables. Not shit! But work. It's very very compelling to me but that may be personal, unsure.
Mouth: Honey, herbs, spice, surprisingly impolite given the age, a certain lack of smoothness but not necessarily in a bad way. But there is, perhaps, a little too much alcohol - it doesn't evaporate the way I felt and hoped it would so it feels like there's something a little unreleased or undiscovered. May be just a little too sophisticated for my palette this, unsure. Dry body.
After: I get something oily, something on the bonfire that shouldn't be on it maybe. Behind that, some sort of sweet desert, maybe cheesecake.
Overall i'm a little disappointed with this dram. At around £300 a bottle this would need to be very, very special to recommend it and it isn't that. Good, but whisky just as good is available for less than a third of the price.
I don’t think getting something cheap improves the taste. What I think it does is increase enjoyment.
Cracking a great bottle of OGD 114, knowing I paid $30 for it, is a load of fun. But it still tastes the same, which is great.
I liked the Amrut Single Cask bottles the LCBO brought in but would, at the time, not pay $125 for them. I did get them when they were reduced, buttery tasted the same.
@Victor I think we all show bias when we score and review whiskies here. If you don’t like sherry maturation, you will score A’Bunadh lower Han I would. Someone who does not like peat will not score a peated whisky as high.
@Nozinan the big clue is the title of this review, and the title and text of the accompanying review of Glen Scotia 18 yo by the same reviewer.
Is 'bias' the correct word to describe the subjective? I don't think so. "Prejudice" is the word most associated with dictionary definitions of 'bias'. Prejudice = pre-judgment. An honest subjective appraisal and preference made after experiencing the product is not pre-judged and therefore not biased. The subjective remains unique to the individual experiencing it, and therefore cannot claim any form of universal application to the tastes and experiences of others. Where you use the word "biased" I would use the word "subjective".
When @OdysseusUnbound says that he is biased toward Lagavulin I reply to him that his love of the Lagavulin products which he has tasted makes him biased toward Lagavulin only if he says that one of its products is great without he himself actually having tasted it. A subjective personal preference is an entirely different thing than is a pre-judgment without experience of the product under discussion.