The Arran 14 took me a while to figure out.  I wrote up notes on it several times.  I loved the 10 Year and I loved the 18 Year, but the 14 Year really seemed to suffer middle child syndrome.  It was not the fun introductory malt anymore than it was the mature elder.  It lost some of the refreshing youth of the 10, but did not have the depth of the 18.  Was it an awkward teenager; no longer a cute child but far from a mature adult?

Curiosity satisfied.  I loved this.  The baked earthen oven and caramelized vegetable notes hit my right in the savory spot.  The unpeated Indian malted barley and the peated Scottish barley are in perfect harmony in this bottle.  One brings savory spices, the other sweet peaty smoke, each furthering the complexity of the dram.  The whole scene takes me straight to a beachside “Baby’s First Luau,” hanging out with parents and friends in the shade, salty ocean in the air, food slowly cooking.

The store pick Machir Bay might be great for someone who is ‘peat curious’ and wants a window into the range of flavors that scotch can pick up from peat, without being overwhelmed by lots of sherry or a viscous mouthfeel.  It might also be great for someone who needs a scotch with great smokey notes for a mixed drink where the let down on the mouthfeel will not be obvious.

The lightly peated ‘Edited’ is the middle child of Paul John’s core retail range, sitting between the unpeated ‘Brilliance’ and heavily peated ‘Bold.’  It combines elements of both, balancing the influence of Scottish peated malt against the tropical and tangy malted six-row barley from northern India.

Widow Jane sits in a charming, semi-industrial, quickly gentrifying, corner of Brooklyn a way off the closest metro stop.  It shares an open brick building with the Cacao Prieto chocolate factory and the two were once part of the same operation.  

Two single cask halves of the “Luna Release,” I would have assumed the 12Y Peated was the “dark side of the moon” and the 5 Year unpeated “the light side.”  According to Stefan Van Eycken, who provided the bottles at the tasting, the inspiration was Taiso Yoshitoshi's "One Hundred Views of the Moon.”

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