anCnoc Flaughter

As our third round of samples begin to wind down, I saved my third supplied sample for last in hopes it would be the best of the three I offered up. Flaughter is distilled by highland region distillery, anCnoc. It is the second in their peated series, following Rutter, and preceding the recently announced PeatHeart. This one is rated at around 15ppm and is a healthy 46% ABV. It’s NCF’d and has no color added. The nose is pretty weird. The first thing that popped into mind was Diacetyl. It is a condition usually associated with wild and sour craft beer. It is basically a failure of the yeast to completely consume the bacteria, introduced during fermentation to produce the intended sourness, and leads to an unwanted, rancid butter flavor to the beer. That is what popped (lol, pun) into my head at first whiff. The butter smell from an unpopped bag of microwave popcorn. This smell, mixing with the damp fireplace smoke, had my nose reeling and not knowing what the heck to expect on the palate. Well, the first sip revealed lots of peat smoke and a harsh bit of what I’d describe as grilled lemon slices. Like if you were grilling fish with lemon on the top and it slipped off and down onto the hot coals. It also seems apparent that the source whisky here is relatively young and anCnoc decided not to blend in some with a bit of age on it to mellow the younger spirit. It all leads to a lingering, harsh finish. Speaking of finish, some peaty earthiness seeps through along with some wet-blanket-thrown-across-a-smoldering-fire smoke. It’s a bit too harsh and a briny, sea salt flavor dries onto the tongue and lingers until you wash it away. Overall, with all of its faults I think it could’ve been saved and turned into a solid dram had they just used some older malt to calm the entire whisky. A little bit of mellow would’ve went a long way here. As it is, it’s tough to give this one a good score. I’d like to give this some time and come back to it much later, but like Sweet Brown said “Ain’t nobody got time for dat!” (Google Sweet Brown if you aren’t familiar). She’s an American treasure. 3 stars. Cheers.

Stop number 39 on the SDT is Knockdhu, better known as anCnoc. Flaughter is a NAS expression from this Highland distillery that gets its name from a type of spade shovel. Flaughter is peated to a level of 14.8 ppm. It is bottled at 46% ABV, is non chill filtered and is a natural color of pale straw. The nose is peaty and earthy. A fair amount of sea salt and grilled lemons appear soon after you get acclimated to the peat. Some light plum and apricot notes. It's not very complex and shows a good bit of youth. A low level of vanilla, green grapes and some maritime notes. The palate starts off with a medium level of peat. Not too intense at 14.8 ppm, but it is adamant about its peatiness. Earthy, brine/sea salt. A little fruity, but not too sweet. I had a hard time trying to discern individual fruit flavors, just a general fruitiness. It ends a bit ashy with citrus. Medium light bodied. Creamy and a little oily. Mouthwatering and it coats your mouth in a way that is a little unusual, but not in a bad way. Medium long finish, mostly just peat smoke and ashes. I was hoping for much more out of this one. The packaging is aesthetically appealing and gave the expectation that something special was inside. It's not bad, but it just didn't wow me. It's too one dimensional. For the price of $65 it is very much not worth the price of admission. I could see enjoying this once in a while when you want something peated that you can sip without thinking too much about it, but other than that it's not worth buying a full bottle. Thanks to Lee for the sample. 3.25 Cheers 🥃

I'm heading into a Highland/Speyside peated whiskey kick, thanks to the arrival of a recent order from The Whiskey Exchange.  I started with the Ancnoc Flaughter.   This was my first Ancnoc.  I came without any particular expectations, and was pleasantly surprised.   The first and biggest surprise was the level of peatiness throughout - nose, palate and finish.  It's certainly not Laphroaig or Ardbeg, but it's the dominating note, and it's a very pleasant barbeque peat.   Second, there was no youthful harshness. Finally, the sweetness was present, but nicely layered and not overpowering. After I got past the surprises, I did note a couple of downsides.  First, it's quite simple overall, even if the two dominant aspects (peat and sweet) are quite nice.  In addition, the sweetness is rather nondescript - fruity, but hard to place specifically.  I'll soon see how this stacks up against some of the other drams that I have waiting, including the Ancnoc Cutter.  As of now, my take is that it's not compelling enough to throw it on the "buy" list, but I would never be unhappy drinking it.

A more “classic” peated malt as compared to Rutter. Still one can feel that this whiskey is young as it is really sharp in a “spirituous” sense. Very pleasant to the nose - smoked and peated heaviness with some awesome sweetness of caramel, fresh fruits, raisins and chocolate. Very strong to the tongue but without a bitumen note as it was with Rutter. Again there are all the classic anCnoc features - cocoa on a palate, caramel, toffee which are mixed with a strong peated taste and iodine. Hints of liquorice on a palate in the finish. Finish is long, not very sweet and nicely peated - as it is required.

Thanks to my friend Lee, as part of our Scottish distillery sampling team, I got to try this peaty Highlander. Till this evening, I don't think I ever even heard of Ancnoc ( how the hell do you pronounce that? A-Knock?). This is a mini-me version of a young Caol Ila, minus any salinity or briny elements. Peat hits you right away, with a hefty dose of citrus, and a short sharp finish with a bit of earthy aftertaste. Not bad. This is something I'd like to have on a cold rainy night. It may not be earth shattering, but it's a solid middle of the pack peaty whisky. Thanks Lee!

This is a sweet peat, so the theme of this dram is going to be "Sweet Leaf" by Black Sabbath. The nose also has some dark berry fruit in there with some distant and faint dark chocolate mint. On the palate, it's a flood of ash along with a lemon bar, and oil. Heavy mouth coat, and a long smoky finish, but I think it could be better if something else was there for balance, whether it be more sweet or briny notes. Just a couple drops of water did not kill the peat and took a little of the twang down. I am thinking 3.25 on this, and thanks to Lee for the sample.