Deanston 12 Review - Does This Highland Whisky Live Up to its Reputation?

This is Whiskey Whereabouts, I'm Tim, and this at least is the bottle that my bottle of Deanston 12 came in. When I opened this bottle and pulled the cork for the first time it snapped in half and so I had to go through the process that I usually undertake when this happens, when I open a bottle with a compromised cork. I will put a link up to my video right up here if you haven't seen it, in which I sort of went through all of the different steps with a $600 bottle of Buna Havan 25 year that had a broken cork. And by coincidence here we have another bottle from the same sort of parent company for me, sort of sister distillery in the portfolio from Deanston. I had a very old bottle of that Buna Havan, not that it was aged 25 years but the bottle had sat for a long time before I opened it. This is just a bottle I picked up a couple weeks ago off the shelf. Bad luck. So the whiskey that I haven't had out of the bottle yet lives in these little sample bottles in a cardboard box in sort of my whiskey cabinet. But I have the bottle out for purposes of our video and you probably know what this bottle looks like already because this bottle is a darling of whiskey YouTube. It was once a very, very nice value. It has crept up in price. We'll talk about value later. But what we have is Highland whiskey is properly presented 46.3% ABB and we have the proper presentation of this whiskey. So Deanston, if you are not familiar that was established in what was an old cotton mill. They had a water source nearby and made it practical to have a distillery and it also makes it practical for them to be self-sufficient. They provide all their own electricity based on hydroelectric power, an impressive and laudable achievement for this distillery. So I have my pour in front of me here and it is pretty nice color. So obviously natural color see a little bit better in the bottle. This is for all bourbon matured whiskey. That's pretty decent color. I don't know anything about the ratio in terms of the cast of the age of the casks fill and whatnot. We do have 12 years in the warehouse and I have had this whiskey open while I've been talking. So it's had some time to open up. Being a 12-year I'm going to go in neat now on the nose. Now this whiskey opened for about two weeks or so. It's opened up nicely. I've noticed a couple pours. I'm probably to about here on the bottle if all the whiskey was still in the bottle after this pour. So not that deep into it but it's had a little bit of time. It opened up pretty apple. It was sort of buttery caramel. This whiskey has a reputation as being sort of honey sweet bourbon cask influence and I was getting a little bit more richer and more buttery on the nose at least on that neck pour. That fruit has sort of opened up and been sort of complimenting now. I'm getting a little orange now. Citrus. Plenty of that vanilla. You know that's going to be there. It does have a floral element to it in the mix. What jumps out to me about this whiskey in addition to the bourbon cask notes is some of the more natural notes. There's a floral almost potpourri. That's opened up. It's not quite as sharp as a potpourri as it was on the neck pour. Now it's a little bit more integrated into the sort of malt and sort of grain elements and there's also some wet grass note. Let's try the palate now. So sort of red mealy apple now. It has a real honey textured sweetness to it but I think the actual flavor presentation of the sweetness has gone from chocolate vanilla swirl. Now it's full on chocolate like milk chocolate. There's definitely something salty almost nutty. There is a grain again. A malt or grain element here on the palate on the finish. Good bit of oak casks. Oak spice. There's a caramel apple sweetness and there's you know the light dusting pepper. The 46.3 is pretty manageable but there is also in addition to from the cask a sort of bitter. There's a full sour kind of fruit sour fruit peel element that is integrated nicely. It's always kind of been there. I don't think that the finish has really evolved that much since it's been open but it is balanced with that sweetness of the fruit and that sort of really condensed honey gone caramel. Really really sort of condensed down a little bit of salty element a buttery quality to it. This is a nice satisfying rich bourbon matured 12-year high whiskey but we have another tool at our disposal. I'm going to take some water and going to add it just to see what other flavor notes it might repeat. Let's see what happens here on the nose. Big difference here with the water. This is why we add this. It has put the sort of grain cereal notes right up at the top right up right right on the surface of this nose. Now one layer down what was reading to me is sort of wet grass on the nose neat has gone musty earth. Now there's a dusty kind of library book yeah quality to this and it is back to this green sour apple sweet. I wouldn't I would welcome some more of these notes that I'm exposing with the water if I could get them sort of higher in the mix without losing some of the richness I had neat. I am intrigued to find them here with the water I might want to adjust my water levels a little bit to find the perfect ratio because with a little bit more emphasis on some of these notes it would give it I think a little bit more complexity neat on the palate a lot of the same here with the oak the caramel sweet kind of really condensed and rich red apple cinnamon. That's the big thing that's different it's giving it me a sort of a liveliness a little bit more pepper on the tongue and a real sort of dusting of a cinnamon that kind of kind of melts together with that apple. Now I'm finished toasted vanilla cake something with the sort of cereals bleeding together with that sweetness there's still some of that cinnamon giving it a liveliness and oak as it develops and fades away there's a nice presence of that green grassy kind of note that's hanging over it's it's it's it's really reading a little bit more earthy than floral to me with the water but it is sort of lingering along with what's left of that sort of toasty kind of vanilla sweetness. This is a very satisfying straightforward high quality single malt scotch whiskey it is a whiskey that I have recommended to bourbon enthusiasts trying to try you know scotch whiskey that isn't sort of asking too much of them it's certainly giving you a reward for unpacking it there's there's there's plenty of notes to discover we found some more with the water I think this is an absolutely classic example of a down the middle four glass whiskey as it presents in the glass. We talk about value about this whiskey this used to be a whiskey that was on all kinds of lists of under whatever price category one of the best whiskeys and it absolutely was I can't buy this whiskey for $70 anymore for a 12-year whiskey that is presented as well it's a fair price I see it between $65 to $70 and I think that it's a little bit under the Buna Havan usually I think the Buna Havan is a little bit better I know I know that I prefer it personally but it is very close to that range so I'm not gonna reduce it final rating for glasses what do you think let us know in the comments this is one that has a lot of fans if you're a fan of this video make sure you subscribe there's a big button right over here that'll help you do that so you don't miss any future videos that we have coming I will see you on the next one