Lowland malts like Rosebank typically get descrptions like "elegant" or "sophisticated" which really means "there's not a whole lot of flavor there." And while this is no tornado on the palate, what’s there is so enjoyable that it’s hard not to keep going back for more and more. I cracked this with five experienced single malt aficionados in the LAWS bar, and with many other great malts available to us all night, we still kept going back to this one for more.

The main flavor here is rich vanilla, with a pretty perfect helping of oak, with various fruit and lighter spice nuances… to get more descriptive is to imply there’s a complexity here that I don’t think there is, but I don’t mind that. The finish is where this impresses most, it’s a long, strong hook for more.

At LAWS we rate whiskies purely on an enjoyment factor, irrelevant of cost. No whisky is “worth” $3k to someone who can’t afford it, while to others this is within their budget. Perhaps the fairest thing to say is that in this price range, in today’s market, this does what we’d want it to while exceeding what we expect it to.

I started off the night certain this was right on the cusp of A-/B+, but the drinkability and returnability pushes it to A-.