Tamdhu 12 yo (43%, OB, -/+ 2022)
Colour: pale gold. Nose: leafy and beefy! Seriously, I get rather a lot of wet leaves and beef stock such as Bovril and things like Maggi and bouillon. I rather like these sorts of profiles though, so it's all good in my wee book. There's some oily cereals and even wee mashy and waxy combinations underneath as well. Surprisingly fat and fulsome in some ways. Mouth: not as fulsome as the nose would have us believe! The arrival is somewhat softer and more on grains, cereals, fudge dipped in milk chocolate, cooked grains, oatcakes and a spoonful of treacle. Finish: medium and back on meat stocks, tobaccos and hints of cranberry gravy, baked apples and plums. Comments: some clever sherry-ish things going on here. For £45 a bottle (at time of tasting) like this certainly feels like it belongs in that category of 'humble, affordable and perfectly quaffable malt whiskies' - which of course is the category that everyone claims to want but not many geekier folk actually buy.
SGP: 551 - 82 points.

Tamdhu 8 yo 2014/2022 (51%, Bramble Whisky Co, oloroso sherry hogshead, 340 bottles)
Bramble is a very swish cocktail bar in Edinburgh that I highly recommend visiting if you get a chance. Colour: coppery gold. Nose: sharper and fudgier sherry, more on tobacco leaf, sharp red fruits, candied citrus peels and a touch of leaf mulch. Clean and nicely bright. With water: some bruised and baked apples, mint leaf and a little more overall jammy sweetness. Mouth: good, clean, modern sherry at a nicely chunky bottling strength. Some sultanas and more candied citrus peels, plum jam, juniper and some slightly sweet gravyish notes. In time more cereal touches emerge from beneath. With water: same feeling of a simpler, sweeter and slightly chewier profile. Some extra spiciness from the wood seems to emerge as well, but it feels relatively in check with the fruitier qualities still. Finish: medium, some more exotic spiciness emerging such as five spice and clove, along with treacle and brown bread. Comments: a fine dram to sip while taking magic mushrooms and staring at the label on the bottle for eight hours straight.
SGP: 561 - 85 points.

Tamdhu 26 yo 1970/1996 (51.5%, Signatory Vintage, cask #373, sherry butt, 390 bottles)
This one has a pretty monumental reputation… Colour: deep mahogany. Nose: exquisite and immediately showing fathomless depth. An intoxicating level of all manner of fruits, the most beautiful black coffee, salty liquorice and the bitterest of dark chocolates. Also walnut and herbal liqueurs, mentholated oils, precious hardwood resins, then myriad tiny umami notes that incorporate dried wild mushrooms, cigar humidors and richly savoury stocks. A nose you could keep writing about until you'd surpassed the Epic of Gilgamesh! With water: drilling even deeper into all manner of tobaccos, tar extracts and liqueurs, sultanas and fir liqueur. Also becoming more aromatically spicy and powerful too. Mouth: the perfect match of that nose, so immediate, forceful, spellbinding and hypnotically fruity, mentholated, faintly medicinal and riddled with dark, pickled, preserved and exotic fruits. Deeply, jouth-coatingly textural, pristinely salty and full of endless tertiary flavours that pull you in any number of different directions simultaneously. A whisky that leads, and you just have to follow along. With water: all of the above, only magnified, broader, fatter, deeper and more astoundingly complex and stunningly beautiful! Finish: quite breathtakingly long and involving menthol herbs, liquorice and tobaccos once again, but also so much more. Astonishing how it lingers with such precision of flavours and intense power and beauty. Comments: luminous and stunning and deserving every nano-snippet of its reputation. A dram which would not only hold its own amongst a lineup of the all-time greats, but probably also crush several of them along the way.
SGP: 662 - 95 points.