Which bottle did you just buy and why?

@nooch Have to agree with you on the Benromach 10. I think the best bang for the buck I've had recently was the Bunnahabain 18 for $104 from Liquor Depot in Edmonton. It's gone way up since then.

@nooch The best deal at the LCBO WAS Benromach 10. Sadly...all gone now.

Signatory 1998 Clynelish 15 Un-Chillfiltered

@KRB80 , a Signatory in their patented scary font! Looks great.

Macallan 12 yo Sherry Oak, 2 bottles for our stores, and 2 more bottles as gifts. Why? Birthday gifts. As for our bottles, much as I wish these were the Cask Strength Macallan, I am nonetheless eager to have some stored sherried Scottish malt in which I have good confidence that the bottles are not sulphur-ruined. I've never yet had a sulphured Mac 12 Sherry Oak despite having had other various sulphur-screwed Macallans, such as Edition 1, 12 yo Double Cask, and the 18 yo. My bottle of 1991 18 yo was not ruined by sulphur, but it was quite noticeably damaged by it. The Macallan 12 yo Double Cask was on sale for the same price as the 12 yo Sherry Oak. I would not give you $ 5 for a bottle of Macallan 12 Double Cask for my own consumption. For a highly sulphur-sensitive individual that Double Cask is undrinkable. One of the surprises for me in the whisky hobby is that sulphur sensitivity for me has grown and grown and grown with years of experience. It took me quite awhile to really notice it and for it to bug me. Yes, I know, many many of you will never have the affliction of clearly smelling and tasting sulphur. In a way you are very lucky, because you can enjoy whiskies which some of us find completely undrinkable. But you are also unlucky because you will never have the experience of being able to distinguish between completely clean wine influence in a whisky and the sulphur-tarnished version.

A current sale price was also a motivator: $ 62 per 750 ml bottle out the door.

OK, @Nozinan, I am up to 9 bottles purchased in just under 11 months.

@Victor Told you so...

But it's better to admit that your goal of 10 bottles in 3 years was ill-conceived than to miss out on something you'll never get later.

If I were able to.... I'd buy 2 of the 12s. I know they are only 43% but having tried it I have been impressed with the amount of flavour.

Old Pulteney 12. I stopped at a liquor store, attracted by the word "Warehouse" in its sign, that I had never been to and spotted a sole tin of this single malt at a relative current bargain price ($43). I recalled that Ralfy had once said that this bottle was one of the three single malts he would recommend to a novice that would not break the bank. (He gives it a 90 rating!) Opened it at last night and was very pleased, salt and maritime notes and a quite satisfying finish.

@Nozinan $55 US for the 12 down in Oregon. I would have got two, but I already had an irresistibly priced ($51) Clynelish 14, and an Ardbeg 10 ($49) to cart across the border. The Mac 12 was on sale, down from $62 normal price.

@Victor,

Sulfur Bomb! L0528W L02 13/12 is the lot number for the recent allotment of The Macallan Double Cask 12 YO for Ontario. It has a huge sulfur taint. I've put that particular bottle aside. We can revisit it in the future...................or not.

@BlueNote If you are visiting someone in Oregon with frequency, you can buy and store and bring back slowly.

@Nozinan I'm on it. My sister in law is a willing mule. We go down there once a year and they come up here once a year. That's good for 6 legal bottles.

@BlueNote Play the long game. Buy now, mule later. I have a number of bottles in Florida (my friend hasn't lived there in at least a year) that will bet moving to San Francisco, and I've been getting them "delivered" for years. I also have three OGD114 s paid for in Seattle that are waiting for an opportunity.

Springbank 20 Single Cask - Bourbon Cask - 204 Bottles

Longrow Red 13 Malbec

I've gone crazy but I just couldn't resist the 20yr Single Cask. It was either splurge now or forever regret missing out on it. Sadly, I'll probably die before ever opening it. Now awaiting the September release of the 14yr Bourbon Cask @ 55.3%! It should probably hit stateside around December if I had to guess.

@KRB80 Dead men don't drink. Crack that puppy and enjoy it while you're on the right side of the turf. ;-)

@KRB80 that Springbank would be hard to pass up. I await Springbank cask strength bottles as well, the LCBO should have them on the shelves in..................................sigh!

@Astroke for a second you had me there...

But of course, should the LCBO carry it, it will likely be out of my price range.

@Nozinan true enough

Just bought Old Weller Antique 107 because it's the closest I've been able to get to pappy! And it was $34 at the LCBO. Bottles went fast - released Saturday, gone province wide by Tuesday.

@paddockjudge, I've considered everything from activated charcoal filtration to insertion of metallic copper into my whisky bottles to see if there is a way to de-tox the sulphur out of the sulphured wine-cask malts. So far it all seems like just too much trouble. That sulphur 'flavour' comes out with air exposure and hangs extremely tough for years. So far I haven't observed a malt in which years of air exposure ever removed the sulphur influence.

One approach is to vat the sulphured malt with some very peaty whisky to try to hide the sulphur behind the peat. That may work sometimes, but, I suspect, only sometimes. I was horrified recently to discover just how much sulphur I was able to taste in long opened bottles of both Ardbeg Ardbog and Ardbeg Galileo. Sulphur hadn't bothered me with either of those bottles when they were first opened. With air time sulphur emerges from behind the shadows.

@nooch wow...didn't even know. I "won" the right to buy them at the BTAC lottery...and I have more than I need.

@Victor I would expect the charcoal would strip other flavours as well. Better idea is for the manufacturer to take better care...

@Victor I'm quite intrigued by this ability (or affliction?). As you have mentioned on other occasions, you appear to suffer from hyper sensitivity towards sulfur compounds. This immediately makes me think of the phenomenon that occurs with some people after eating asparagus. A certain proportion of the population can detect a particular, distinctive smell in their urine - but most can't. It's always been suggested to be a genetic trait - you have it or you don't. I wonder if your sulfur detecting nose is something similar? I won't inquire in public about your olfactory ability in relation to your urine after consuming asparagus - but you may find this article (almost a meta analysis) interesting. udel.edu/~mcdonald/mythasparagusurine.html Maybe the good doctor could chip in here? @Nozinan

@Hewie Well, I'm no geneticist but I would have to say, from what I've learned, the majority of people seem to smell the asparagus. And I've certainly noted that most if not all seem to secrete, or rather, excrete it.

There are genetic traits for certain people to taste certain things. In high school we tasted PTC - phenythiourea-phenythiocarbamide - the tasters (I was one) knew it right away. There is sulfur in that compound (thio).

Some people cannot eat broccoli because of a bitter taste.

There is also a phenomenon in oenology about super tasters. Sommeliers and good whisky reviewers (I do not count myself in either category) tend to have the ability to tease out more subtle flavours and aromas. Maybe genetics brings them to this field.

I've always wondered if people on Connosr who make the most detailed tasting notes (names withheld) are super tasters. I also wonder if the reason I tend towards CS spirits is because I'm not able to taste the subtleties of 40% ABV weaklings, but super tasters who rate them in the 90s pick up things I just can't.

@Nozinan hmm, some good thoughts there too. I'm also intrigued by the minority of people who can't tolerate the taste of coriander - it's not just that they don't enjoy it, they can't stand the stuff. I love it. I'm certainly no super taster so I sympathise with you to a certain degree, but I do believe I've got better with experience (practice). I've never understood those who enjoy a cigar with their whisky. On the rare occasion I've indulged in a cigar I'm sure I couldn't taste a thing by the time I was part way through it. Each to their own, aye.

@Hewie, whisky enjoyment is much easier if you do not smell or taste sulphur. It took a number of years for me to become more and more attuned to the smells and tastes of sulphur. Now I notice them almost immediately if they present, and I cannot ignore or forget them, even if I wanted to do so. By the sulphur-free standards of 60 years ago the vast majority of Scottish wine-cask malts are now tainted to one degree or another. At this point sulphur present often completely destroys the experience of a whisky for me.

@Victor I'm not sure that being able to smell sulphur is the issue. Sulphur is added to natural gas on purpose and I think most people can smell a gas leak.

It's whether the sulphur affects your enjoyment of whisky that is key. Some people don't mind what they taste (whether or not they identify it as sulphur).

One good example is the Bladnoch 12 we tried 2 years ago. You didn't like it (well, I didn't either at first) but @TAlexander scored it high. And the Glendronach single cask that we opened in May, you said was sulphured, and I think I can sense that, but I still liked it.

So I think it's more complicated than just the presence or absence, or the ability to smell or taste sulphur. And I don't for a moment claim to understand it well.

@Nozinan, yes, it is more about how the suphur is perceived, the extent to which the sulphur is perceived, and whether or not it is individually perceived as irritating and discordant. I do see some people who do not notice sulphur present in whiksy at all. Five years ago I only noticed sulphur in whisky rarely. Now I notice it frequently.

@Victor I think sulfur is what I noticed in the Macallan 12 Double Cask that I tried. It was an off-putting, slightly "old eggs" taste. It was subtle, but definitely present. There were other reasons not to like that particular malt (thin-ish body, unremarkable development, $100 price tag) but I'm becoming more aware of the sulfur. Not anywhere near the degree you seem to pick up on it, but it's developing.

@OdysseusUnbound, it was some LCBO-procured Macallan Double Cask that @Nozinan shared with @paddockjudge, @Maddie, and me. @Nozinan liked it fine. @Maddie was OK with it. She is OK with almost everything. @paddockjudge and I were not at all OK with it. And Macallan Cask Strength is @paddockjudge's favourite malt whisky, maybe favourite among all whiskies.

With sulphured malts, observe how they evolve with air exposure. Typically the sulphur experience is most veiled at first, and becomes more and more pronounced after the bottle has been open a few to many months. With Glenmorangie Companta, which was one of the annual Private Edition releases, I noticed no sulphur at all, at first. Some months later I could not believe how obvious and overpowering the sulphur was. Peat/smoke/brine does a good job of disguising and hiding sulphur flavours, but there are limits there too. I am sure much of the horrendous feedback about some batches of Bowmore 15 Darkest has to do with sulphur influence. I didn't notice the sulphur in Ardbeg Ardbog or Ardbeg Galileo until the bottles had been open a couple of years. Now the sulphur is obvious in those bottles. When I open another bottle of Ardbog again I will make sure to drink it quickly, within, say, 6 months, so that I can enjoy it a lot more.

While it is nice to have acute taste perception, it does seem like a curse to become more aware of sulphur in whiskies. If and when you get as sensitive to it as I or @paddockjudge, or Jim Murray is, you will greatly value those whiskies which are sulphur-free. Something like Macallan Cask Strength, Amrut Intermediate Sherry, or Glenmorangie Sonnalta PX are like gold bricks to a sulphur-sensitive individual.

@Victor funny...I don't even remember trying it. I must be getting old or there were too many good malts....