The Kilchoman ImpEx Exclusive Bottling #494

Tasting notes:
The nose on this one opens beautifully, with the smell of a fruit plate shoved into a peat oven, thanks to the fact that you tripped the waiter at the ideal moment.  It’s like someone used a peat slurry to “juice” a watermelon.  Nature’s Metamucil: it’ll clear you right out.  After it opens up a bit more, the notes are fresh, but not young.  If real lemons could be melted down like wax lemons and used as a donut glaze, that’s what you’d have here.  It’s the Manager Special at the Dunkin Donuts at the airstrip on Islay.  Only drunks buy it.  They quickly regret it, as does the rest of the cabin.  There’s pepper on the nose as well, as if the mechanism on the pepper grinder broke and barely abraded peppercorns fall on your salad.  And for some reason you don’t understand but should, you can’t get the attention of the waiter as he turns the top.
     The mouth has real presence.  And it brings presents, lots of presents for bad children.  Imagine the Islay version of a juice fast smoothie.  Three parts Islay peat, one part kale sprouts, and a pinch of salt.  You won’t lose any weight from it, though, as it just produces an intractable sludge in your colon.  It’s the Hotel California of juice fast smoothies.
     Actually, that makes it sound much worse than it is (at least for most of you, I suppose): it’s a very bright peated whisky.  It’s the first one picked for the gifted class–every time.  It’s astonishingly smooth, like butter covered river stones from an incredibly powerful river.  The finish hangs around like a deaf houseguest who enjoys doing the dishes.