What can we say about Oban 14yo that hasn’t been said before? This classic is one of the best bottles our local (non-whisky-specialist) liquor store had to offer back when we started our journey.

We haven’t had this bottle for maybe 7 or 8 years, before my second brother in law (so not Dion, but @peterwientjes), who has started his own journey fairly recently, bought me this one. He always checks our website, and saw we missed this one. Very generous of him and it offers a great opportunity to see how much our palates have evolved.

This highland whisky with a slightly coastal character, is bottled at 43% ABV and is part of Diageo’s Classic Malt range. Ohh, the old days when our naïve selves thought this range was all we needed.

It’s definitely more tropical than we remember. And it changes constantly, depending on the drams we take beside it. Sometimes it’s more fruity and waxy, and makes us think of Clynelish, other times it gets more salty, ashy and earthy, mostly when you compare it with an actual Clynelish or a dram like Compass Box’s Juveniles. Love it when whiskies have multiple faces. From all the classic malts we’ve revisited in the past couple of years, this is one of the few keepers. What’s your favourite that you keep returning to?