Scapa Distillery, Scotland     founded: 1885 | active
For more detailed mapping of the distilleries in the area from our whisky map page, use this link.

We're walking onto a petrol station forecourt here and into the best smelling shop on the islands - salted hazelnuts, apricots, peppermint, toffee and butterscotch too, heavy on the vanilla. Healthy dose of fruits grapes, pear and a dusty jar of strawberry jam on the nose all topped off with a good vodka whiff.

On the palette there's medicinal banana tastes with calpol, mothballs, mild jalapeños, black pepper and aniseed, mmmm.... and sweeter buttery Werther?'s Originals, spiced orange and watermelon jolly ranchers.

The finish is a fleeting pepper balsamic vinegar, an insistent hot and sour soup, a subtle peppered mackerel, a lingering post-Thai chilli high, a melodramatic steakhouse pepper and a breezy flat 7up - unique!

~£52 (70cl)

Whisky Exchange: Scapa 16yo   |   http://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/P-9389.aspx
Wikipedia: Scapa distillery   |   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scapa_distillery

We've always scored out of 10 in our group (see number in red box, below), with scores regularly given across that spectrum. The value out of 100 below is adjusted to the scale most commonly used for whisky reviews, to allow for better comparison.

83 / 100