The Lost Distillery Company Gerston

How does a distillery can make a whisky from the 19th century? Simple, you take the same barley, the same peat and the same kind of still! For the Gerston, it means you take some Concerto barley, some Loch Calder peat and small stills to get a smuggle whisky style! So what about the result?

On the nose, I have white grapes, chocolate, smoke, something between prune and plum and spices like from a new make of rye. There is also quite some salt and an highpitch ginger with an herbal note. The smoke is getting lighter with air while the nose is going on the Clynelish side.

At first the palate surprise you by it sweetness, then all the flavors from the nose fly in front of you to give place to apricot followed by a more prominent orange and an even bigger bitter orange peel. Finally there is some citrus and a light nail polish sugar (acetonic).

The medium finish keeps the orange and bring back the salt, like a young Clynelish, and some evanescent smoke with the acetonic sugar.

This bottle has been opened for about two months. It used to be way more smoky. With the smoke, there was a chocolaty peat with liquorice. The herbal notes also used to be more brinny, a bit like Bruichladdich. There was also some calcareous water. All of this fade a lot or disappeared. On the other hand the white grapes, the orange and the orange peel really came forward. It seems also more spicy. It was probably at its best a month ago; unfortunately, I was not drinkink it at that time, so, I will never know. The important part is that I prefer it to a great number of single malt of the same price range.