Tullibardine Distillery, Scotland     founded: 1949 | active
For more detailed mapping of the distilleries in the area from our whisky map page, use this link.

You can't deny the fruitiness of this one: sweet lemons and orange peel join up to form "Team Citrus" whilst apples (with some in Calvados-form) and grapes watch from the sidelines. Team Citrus visit a bible camp and come back as Orange Jesus (said in Spanish), and that's not even the most out-there flavour. We then take a visit to the shopping mall hung out in as a teenager, then fireworks begin over a gorse bush where the sun's been shining. We take a quick detour to a sweet shop, picking up some sherbert and licorice, then popping next door to collect hazelnuts and almonds. Whilst outside, it seems to be unusually mossy and pungent - from glue to Grandfather's Greek cologne.

That nasal fruitiness shifts gear to the creamier end of fruity treats: strawberries, banana syrup (artifical), glacé raisins (!), plums and pineapple all feature. Things get somewhat more challenging (and non-existent) with peanut brittle popping up without the peanuts (The Ghost of Peanut's Past), hanging out inadvisably with *something witty*, a man who's so up his own arse that he has asterisks in his name. Whether everyone got tired or just more abstract, it's hard to deny both 'tingly' and 'burny' being there - the latter joined by chilis (they're old pals). Things then get snacky: pistachios, ready salted crisps and mint (shut up, rabbit's snack on it). That nutty theme continues with some almond pastry and discontinues with the smell of daffodils. Finally, we've got a tasy sweet-savoury combo in the microwaved caramel that was once disastrously made and some sea spray (a classic, just for good measure).

Often the finish and taste occupy quite different flavour-sets, but in this case, it's more like two versions of the same thing. (Now lingering) plums, Pear Tarte Tatin, apples and raspberries continue the fruit theme. Then chocolate, honey-peppermint (?) and buttered popcorn continue the sweetness. Then there's an oncoming rush of a pang of self loathing after a great night out, just to keep things a bit unusual. Follow this up with some parsley and non-sugar cough sweets and you've got yourself a disparate finish of just-better-than-mediocre proportions, that lasts for a medium-long amount of time.

~£44 (75cl)

Wikipedia: Tullibardine Distillery   |   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tullibardine
Royal Mile Whiskies - Tullibardine Moscatel Finish   |   http://www.royalmilewhiskies.com/product.asp?

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.

69 / 100