Straw Bogs

Each month we have a Monthly Pick to highlight an available SMWS release that we think deserves some extra attention, which comes with a promotional price. This month it is Straw Bogs, a 12yo single malt Scotch from the Orkney Islands.

SPIRIT NOTES

The neat nose suggested smoked limoncello, sunny gorse bushes, herbal ointments, ink, crushed seashells and coastal flowers. In the background was a slightly muddy, 'boggy' tang of peat, plus a sense of hay and silage. With water we found sandalwood, beach 'dross', light iodine and hints of tarry rope and kelp. The mouth showed a lovely, rich, heathery peat smoke, with further notes of baled hay, smoke-infused straw, dried herbs, natural tar and pickling juices. This was big, bold and excellent we thought. With water the peat became creamier and sweeter, with added notes of lanolin, punchy medicinal notes, dried seaweed and sardines in olive oil. The slightly more unusual farmy side always lingered underneath. This is a superb, more left-field example of this make. At six years of age, we combined selected casks from the same distillery. We then returned the single malt into a variety of different casks to develop further. This is one of those casks.