This is our first attempt at a #whiskyflashblog, so if you are new to The Real Dram, then welcome and thanks for reading. Hopefully you will find us to be creative, irreverent and on point. We hope that you grow to trust our reviews, but that they operate as a guide. We would love it if you would leave us a comment, disagree with our ideas or add your own. After all the best whisky, is one enjoyed in company and one man’s finest dram is another’s toilet filler.
Loch Lomond is a new distillery for The Real Dram, its modern incarnation has only been distilling since 1993, but it claims to have a unique three still set up and to be one of the few sites in Scotland where both grain and malt whisky are produced. It is a highland distillery that is set fairly near to the large Loch from which it takes its name.
Today, we review the Loch Lomond Single Grain.
Price: Soon to be Released
Appearance: Golden yellow, like morning sun glinting on to the irrepressibly dull flavour of a bowl of own brand Corn Flakes.
Aroma: There is a zest to the aroma of this dram, one that combines with spice of ginger and cinnamon. This mixes with a creamy, smoothness, somewhere between single cream and butterscotch.
Taste: This whisky starts with a combination of flavours, there is an woodiness of oak, a round, robust fruit of plum and a floral sweetness of honey. Granola, crushed under the foot of a fallow deer that has pranced in the oaken wood.
The middle of this dram is a developing spice. It sparks into life like a candle lit with a match. Suddenly, as the match hits the wick there is a burst of oak, spice and smoke. There is warmth, which develops through notes of cinnamon and ginger, these notes spread from the middle of the tongue outwards.
There is a tartness that sits on the tongue, but like a candle quashed by fingers, the spice spreads, dampens and transforms into a milky, sweet creamy flavour. This part of the dram is not dissimilar to milk bottle sweets, which impart cream, but creaminess that is unreal in its character. Here in the final flavour the spice lingers, mellowed, but continuing to draw moisture from the mouth and reading the mouth for another sip.
Overall: Grain whisky is often looked down upon by the malt maniacs amongst us, but it has a part to play, a flavour to give and experience to share. We think that this might be an interesting first chapter to your grain story, but ensure that it isn’t the last. There are absolute belters of grain to try.
Real Dram Factor: 7.0
Source: Sample from the distillery, via @TweetTastings.
More Information: www.lochlomondwhiskies.com
Buy Online: Not Available quite yet, but very soon… (When it is released we will update this part of the review)