Taster

Nose: Big and pungent. Fruit and wood. Cider apple, damson plums, honey. Dark chocolate.

Palate: Sour fruitiness. The spices and biting alcohol is hardly tolerable, even with water. Wood dominates maltiness. Reminiscent of a rye whiskey.

Finish: Robust, warm, biting.

Comment: It's my first taste of North Port so I can't decide if the distillery character has been blurred or not by sherry. Like a bulldozer after an earthquake.

Score: 7.5

Taster

Nose: Cedary. Newly sawn wood. Resin. Oil of peppermint.

Palate: Oily. Black chocolate. Bitter.

Finish: Drying. Musty. Woody.

Comment: Of interest to collectors, historians and the likes of me, but this Brechin brew, staunched in 1983, never made a great whisky.

Score: 6.8