Arran The Devil's Punch Bowl Chapter III - The Fiendish Finale Whisky

This has been a month of the 'Devil' with Arran and Bowmore bringing out two Devil'ishly good limited releases into the market. So I decided to pit the two the devil's against each other. Here's what I thought of the Arran first..

Nose: The nose which was the best part of this one.. was a exceptionally pleasing medley of fruits and spices.. Apple, bananas.. with cinnamon's and vanilla. As it opens up further you get some dried black raisins and towards the end .. what remains is some refreshing lemon zest.

I kept it aside with a few drops of water in it.. and that brought out a lot of ripe oranges and wood..

Each of those French Oak.. Bourbon and Sherry casks used for maturing this one.. made their presence clearly felt here.

Palate: The palate does have more of those fruits coming through.. although this time it was harder to point out which ones exactly.. I'd say they were definitely more tropical .. There were also some dark chocolatey flavors coming through with an interesting orangy tang to it. A sprinkling of white pepper and some woody notes were part of the mix too. Overall the palate is fairly creamy with a hint of dryness that begins to appear initially but it loses this completely and just gets a lot more creamier once it marries the tiny bit of water that I'd put in.

Finish: The finish wasn't too long.. but not too short either.. a bit of the spices and some mint.. that was more like toothpaste to be honest..

Overall this is indeed was a fine finale.. to what has now become somewhat of an iconic series from this young distillery. Whether or not it has been better than the previous two editions of this series.. is for you to decide.. :)