flaughter

anCnoc (pronounced a-nock) means “the hill”, which is entirely appropriate considering that the Knockdhu distillery is built on a hill. Founded in 1893 by John Morrison and conveniently near the Banff rail line, it also is an ideal location due the rich bounty of barley and peat. It is peat that makes its presence known in these two new whiskies. Both are named for types of spades used in cutting and forming peat blocks used in malting. A Flaughter spade is used to remove the topmost and more intense peat. The Rutter spade is then used to cut the peat to size and separate the blocks.

Knockdhu has a broad range of whiskies, but these were the two sent for review.

anCnoc Rutter (92 proof)
Visual: Very pale gold.
Nose: A good deal of smoke on the nose with creosote, bonfire and smouldering peat.
Taste: Lightly sweet with a modest amount of smokey flavor. Certainly a bit of branch water will open this up and bring out some more lemon citrus and caramel. But, it’s certainly fine on its own as a bracing Scotch.
Finish: Quite long with a lot of lingering sweetness and a penumbra of peat smoke.
Overall: Very nice and extremely well-balanced.
GSN Rating: A-

anCnoc Flaughter (92 proof)
Visual: Very pale gold.
Nose: Lots of thick and intense smoke. The malt nose stays in the background.
Taste: A deeply rich and sweeter whisky than the Rutter. The smoke is slightly more prominent on the palate, but is by no means distracting from the flavor of the distillate.
Finish: More sweetness from the malted barley comes through than smokiness. However, both of them see-saw back and forth as time goes on.
Overall: A somewhat sweeter and viscous Scotch than the Rutter, but obviously siblings.
GSN Rating: A-

For more information go to: AnCnoc