Time for a whisky review, and this week as Douglas Laing & Co. has made ‘Aliya’ to Israel (meaning: there’s a new local importer) and some 10 expressions are already imported and sold locally online (check out Sipil’s site – if you can manage hebrew). I will be reviewing a few of the DL expressions sold locally starting with the 13 year old sherry matured Scallywag. You probably are familiar with the Scallywag lineup of products, which consists of the original, Cask strength and now this sherried expression, all are vatted Blended malts, from the Speyside whisky region. A blended malt is whisky made up of a few single malts from different distilleries. This is also the first time the Scallywag gets an age statements (the previous ones being NAS), which is also nice.
As always the Scallywag is Non chill filtered, there’s no addition of Caramel (acting as colorant), which is very cool. Let’s get tasting, shall we?
Scallywag 13 yo, sherry edition, 46% , ~50 GBP / 330 ILS 
Nose: Quite a lot of sherry influence, which is to be expected (right?), staring with dried fruit in liquor, quite a lot of sultanas, and dried fruit cake, the sort Islay Bart makes (love those mate!). There’s quite a lot of red and black fruit marmalade, vanilla and cinnamon, and a hint of gunpowder (well, the sherry influence), but only a bit, so don’t get alarmed if you’re not a fan.
Palate: More deep sherry notes, quite rich with spice (cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger powder) , demerara sugar, chocolate fondant, and black cherry / ripe plum marmalade. Sweet, and thick, with hints of toasted wood hiding behind all the fruit and sherry notes.
Finish: Milk chocolate, Mocha, Cinnamon and wood.
Summary:
This is a lovely dram, quite rich, with the sherry , dried fruit, and marmalade mixing well with the wood spice and choclatey notes. A nice desert dram, that will accompany chocolate dishes quite well , I imagine. Good work.
Score: 85/100