I'm relatively new to single malt scotch - about 50 different bottles so far, but mostly all good bottles around the $75 -$125 range. And this is just the most complex, multi-layered, heavenly scotch I've ever had. How they tame the alcoholic bite in a cask strength bottle like this is beyond me - but they do. Granted it was near the end of the bottle at a scotch bar, so perhaps the aeration helped. I'm a big fan of cask strength scotches but haven't had one yet that allowed so many layered flavors to come through so effortlessly as compared to some others where the alcohol kick is sometimes a bit of a hurdle. Bliss. Springbank 12 Cask Strength is another smooth one, but is not nearly as complex. I would not call this Octomore super-heavily peated, but integrated perfectly. I tried the Octomore 15.2 a few days after but felt it was not nearly in the same league to my palate.
