Loch Lomond distillery is a behemoth of fascination, with four different styles of stills churning out a staggering 13 types of single malt out of traditional pot stills and straight necked stills with rectifiers.
Croftenga is the name given Loch Lomond’s heavily peated malt, that was distilled in Inchmurrin’s straight necked stills, but made from malt peated to 40 ppm.
Photo Credit: Whisky.com
Inchmurrin is very fruity, so are we in for smoke and fruit?
Photo Credit: thewhiskyexchange.com
The Whisky Exchange Loch Lomond Croftenga 2008, Refill Ex-Bourbon Hogshead, 289 Bottles (54.8% ABV, NCF, NC)
Appearance: Gold, droplets rolling slowly off a pretty sturdy necklace.
Nose: Smoked vanilla, meat on the grill, honey, floral notes, wet peat. There’s some green mango and lemon.
Palate: Thick and viscous, very full bodied. Smoky with some of the wet cardboard Loch Lomond has, and with notes of tropical fruit, mango and papaya and pepper and a hint of anise.
Linger: Honey and peat in a dry linger, with white pepper on the tongue. The linger is pretty long and very pleasant. The tropical fruit is present here too with mango and a hint of passionfruit.
Conclusion
If you like tropical fruit in your whisky, this is definitely one you’ll want. I’m thinking a non-Bowmore peated whisky with tropical fruit notes, and one that I actually found pretty enjoyable, despite not really being enamored with tropical fruit in general (and Bowmore in particular).