Croftengea 2008 / 2018 #272 for The Whisky Exchange 54.8% vs Croftengea 11 yo 2007 / 2018 #209 The Single Cask 60.2%
This is Loch Lomond. It’s common practice to designate different names to different styles of makes to differentiate them from the ‘house’ style. But for Loch Lomond, which is able to make up to 8 different style of whisky, such a distinction is a necessity rather than an indulgence.
Croftengea 2008 / 2018 #272 for The Whisky Exchange 54.8%
These young new Croftengeas have been impressive and this is much in line. A heavy thick peat that’s not about the sea but more about thick loam, black sludge and lots of rooty peat. The sweet bourbony aspects of this cask also plays to its strengths adding considerably brown sugar and leathery sweetness to an already creamy sweet-peaty make, though it does feel like it holds back the phenols somewhat. Not the most complex or longest on the tongue, where dried grass and crumbly earthy peat pushes off the sweetness but promptly goes into a white smoke finish.
Croftengea 11 yo 2007 / 2018 #209 The Single Cask 60.2%
This one feels like a brake has been lifted and the phenols shoot into the stratosphere in an explosion of peat and pure gritty smoke. Gone is the sensation of viscous sweetness, but revel now in lamp oil, wet clay, piles of dried branches and a crunchy massive peat. On the tongue its pure octane, with a cracking hot lava snap and pure peat and smoke without the peated malt bins and feinty notes some young peated whiskies have – but then again only time will tell how it fares at 20 years. So, straightfoward again but sure does the job. At this stage much like a Ledaig but without the ocean, and that’s high praise..
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