Cragganmore 12 Year Old

Delicate, Juicy, Oak, Vanilla
2022-08-30

Cragganmore focuses on the production of single malt whisky for blends. Some of the whisky from the Speysider distillery can be found, for example, in the Johnnie Walker Green Label and the Johnnie Walker Blue Label. So are the distillery's own bottlings to be enjoyed at all?
The Cragganmore 12 belongs to the Classic Malts of Scotland. The distillery regularly bottles a Distillers Edition of the same. Unless a special release or a rare 25-year-old bottling is released, we have to be satisfied with the first two.

Cragganmore 12 Year Old (Preview Image Source: The Whisky Exchange)

Smell

We get a strong smell of honey and butterscotch in the nose. After a while, we notice malty cereal notes in the middle part, while floral notes opening up a little further back.

Taste

Our first impression here is semolina pudding with pear puree - very intense. The Scotch is malty sweet with a good portion of vanilla. Characterised by pleasant oak, we have a discreet wood smoke, which is rounded off by cereal notes.

Finish

We would describe the sweet-bitter, slightly woody-spicy finish as a short trip rather than a long journey.

Thoughts

The standard bottling from the Speysider distillery is surprisingly intense without being heavy. We like the combination of sweet-ish aromas with spicy and grainy notes very much. This applies to the smell as well as the taste. All in all, a good entry-level malt. We would love for the distillery to add one or two more bottlings to its portfolio and would definitely want to taste them.

Rating: 72/100 - Very Good (Marcel: 68 | Sascha: 74)

Value for Money: 4/5 - Good

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Preview Image Source: The Whisky Exchange