Deanston 10 Years Old Bordeaux Red Wine Cask Finish 46.3% NV

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Serge Valentin (82)

Indeed, it took us some time to decide to taste this cabernet-flavoured beast. Honestly, I already struggle with 'Bordeaux Blends' made all over the world with pseudo-French place names (clos, château, domaine etc.), so you can imagine, Scottish whiskies with 'Bordeaux' in big bold letters… Do that with 'Champagne' and the same day you'll have a black Mercedes 500 parked outside your door, with four burly men over 6'2" inside. Now it's probably very good, let's see, but the 'single' designation is starting to seem a bit overstretched for all these single malts whiskies. Colour: pale gold. No rosé. Nose: a bit of soap and curry at the start, then it turns to paraffin and porridge with syrups of raspberry and cherry. Then we get blood orange, pink pepper, overripe figs and nutmeg. I must admit it's not bad. Mouth: it's very odd, with pepper and strawberry (just missing the... champagne) then gingerbread. The good news is that everything then falls into place, with more chocolate, cinnamon, and cherry stems. Finish: rather long, spicy and on raspberry. Hints of bell pepper, must be the cabernet. Comments: I never drink whisky to find hints of raspberry, I much prefer raspberry brandy for that. That said, I was bracing for much worse, it's actually not bad at all for one of the unapologetic Doritos of malt whisky.