This right here is a 10-year-old single malt from an undisclosed distillery on Islay, with 25% of it having been finished in first-fill oloroso sherry casks, and bestowed the decidedly descriptive name Seaweed & Aeons & Digging & Fire. If those four words (and three ampersands) aren't quite enough of an explanation of what this expression is all about, here are a few more: stripped-back, smoky, complex, a bit sherried, balanced, coastal. Yeah, that should do it. Great for people who love uncompromising Islay whisky and sans-serif fonts.
Rich, powerful sherry with a well-integrated core of peat. Solid.
Well-balanced but extremely forceful on delivery. The sherry makes itself known in a really good way.
Red apple sweetness gives way to oaken-vanilla goodness and fades elegantly into the embers of a chargrilled well-aged steak.
A thoroughly impressive dram. One would be forgiven for mistaking it for an OB with another 5 years of age on it.
Loved it but couldn't find the seaweed. I got smelter and coke (the kind you burn to make steel) and tarmacadam.
Ok, caveat here that might be a significant one. I'm recovering from covid, so my taste buds may not be Olympic standard. I've checked the below with my partner who agrees with the taste profile, but then...she's also recovering from covid. So with that said, I was really looking forward to this after all the great reviews and at the price it looked like an absolute bargain. But... This whisky tastes like an ash tray. If that's your thing, crack on, you'll love it. But as someone that is very much into their smokey, peaty whiskies, this doesn't have any of the meaty,earthy almost damp smoke you tend to expect. It's just ash. There's an underlying sweetness that contrasts the smoke that you often don't get from Islay, but it's not really enough to provide any sort of depth to the flavour. Finally, the Seaweed in the title is totally missing, there's not any brine or similar anywhere near it. So Atom Labs, either your whisky is an ash tray, or my taste buds have been turned into one by Covid-19. I'll rewrite this review when I taste it again in six months to see if it's me or you, but at the moment, this felt like a disappointment even at £30. At that price range, I'd go for a Ardbeg Wee Beastie, Laphroaig Select or similar.
Hands down.
Great value for money! Tasty whisky at a fraction of the price of others of the same quality. Easy sipper!
I was tempted by this one because of the mention of peaty-ness but the finish is super rough sadly
