At a recent Scotch Night, one of the attendees brought a bottle of Auchentoshan Three Wood. The Three Wood is a whisky that has been matured in three different casks – American Bourbon, Spanish Oloroso Sherry, and then finished off in Pedro Ximenez Sherry casks. I didn’t know that going into the tasting and was delightfully surprised when we got to the Three Wood, the lone Lowland in the bunch.

You see, my friends are big into IPAs and Islays and all the strong, smokey, bitter, and bold flavors that those types of beverages bring. Personally, I enjoy Islays but I can’t drink it all night. I get tired of it. With Speysides and the like, it’s much easier to enjoy all night… which isn’t always a good thing either!

Auchentoshan is the first Lowland I’d ever enjoyed and there aren’t many Lowland scotches available in the United States. To date I’ve only ever enjoyed Auchentoshan and Glenkinchie, I may have seen Bladnoch in a store once.

So, let’s get to the notes:

• Color: A lovely bronze that looks a lot like the color of maple syrup.
• Nose: It’s sweet with raisin and brown sugar. I don’t know if it’s because I associated the color with maple syrup that my brain was playing tricks on me but it does smell sugary, which jives with finish in a dessert wine cask.
• Palate: Much sweeter than I expected, partly because we started with Islays, but you really got hazelnut and butterscotch.
• Finish: Moderate finish that continues the sweetness and fruitiness, doesn’t last forever but doesn’t disappear quickly.

Overall, I really enjoyed it and I think my notes lean towards sweetness simply because we had so many others that lacked a sweetness (no finish in dessert casks), like Yamazaki 12.

I was a little surprised to learn that the bottle costs around $75 for 750ml so it should be no shock that I enjoyed it. 🙂