For the first full week of November let’s do a series of reviews of releases from the boutique indie bottler, Compass Box. As you doubtless know, unlike most Scotch whisky indies, Compass Box does not release casks of whiskies from distilleries but their own blends of one kind or the other: vatted malts (or whatever they’re officially called now), blends of malt and grain, all grain whisky: they’ve released them all. They are very popular with the whisky geek corner of the market. I have previously aired my skepticism about aspects of Compass Box’s presentation and appeal to this part of the market. In short, I’ve speculated that their bespoke presentation and facility with the language of whisky geekdom is a large part of their success. The whiskies themselves have often seemed to me to be adjacent to the presentation of them. That said, I’ve liked a number of their releases even as I’ve wondered about the fuss. Enlightenment, released in 2016, was one of their releases about which a fair bit of fuss was made.

It was released in response to EU and UK regulations that disallow the listing of ages of different components in a blend. Compass Box presents this as a matter of transparency: they would like, they say, to be able to tell the consumer everything about every component of their whiskies. This could uncharitably be read as an end-run around the spirit of age statements. After all, it’s the age of the youngest component that determines an age statement. By those rules your whisky might be a 7 yo if you were to put an age statement on the label but you might be better able to convince the customer to take a chance on it if you told them there was x% 20 yo whisky in there as well (even if that 20 yo whisky is not doing very much for what’s in the bottle). Or better still, you could tell people the ages of components without putting a number on the label at all. But it seems to me that the current situation quite benefits canny bottlers like Compass Box. They can gesture towards age without having to reveal it while letting their packaging and branding do the work of convincing the customer to pay the asking price.

Okay, so what went into this release. As per their fact sheet, it’s comprised of 48.2% Clynelish, 36.7% Glentauchers, 10.8% Balblair and 4.3% Mortlach—the first three from first-fill American oak casks and the last from a rejuvenated American oak cask. My hats off to whoever decided to go with the decimals instead of 48%, 37%, 11% and 4%. Okay, let’s see what all this adds up to beyond 100% marketing.

Compass Box, Enlightenment (46%; from a bottle split)

Nose: A very northern highlands nose with wax and apples and pears and just a bit of oak in the background. On the second sniff there’s a fair bit of cereal and the fruit gets sweeter. Not much change with time. A few drops of water push the oak back and bring out a touch of cream.

Palate: Comes in as indicated by the nose but with some citrus mixed in as well. A good bite at 46%; rich texture. Continues in this vein with some pineapple candy joining the citrus; the oak gets more peppery. Water pushes the pepper back and brings out some bitter lime zest.

Finish: Long. Spicier here. The fruit keeps going, turning a bit musky. Not as spicy with water and the fruit gets even muskier before fading.

Comments: I am very impressed by how Compass Box has through great effort basically created a 10-11 yo bourbon cask Glen Ord. This is not an insult: I like young bourbon cask Glen Ord a lot and this would be a very good young bourbon cask Glen Ord.

Rating: 86 points.