Lakes Whiskymaker's Reserve No. 2 Review

Hi everyone,

Been taking a bit of a break from reviewing at the moment, despite much more time on my hands with lockdown. Been opening a few new bottles though, so I have been reviewing some whiskies, just haven’t been that motivated to post to Reddit.

Anyway, here we have one of the first releases from the Lakes Distillery. After taking on Dhavall Gandhi as Master Blender (an ex-blender at Macallan), the Lakes seemed to have gone with trying to Macallanise their whisky in terms of taste and premiumisation.

We’ll see if that pays off in the long run as young Macallan isn’t all that great in my opinion. As well as being overpriced of course.

Lakes Whiskymaker’s Reserve No.2 60.9%

Colour: Light Amber

Body: Full

Nose: Sweet, cherry, cherry sauce, but of nose prickle, some oak, obvious vanilla, creamy.

Water: Better, more rounded with raisin and malt. You can see it trying to imitate Macallan here.

Taste: Sharp arrival, bite of alcohol then cherry sauce and a little touch of STR-esque oak, quite dry.

Water: Better balanced, more well rounded arrival, chewy ripe cherry and plum. Still a little sharp but also flat in the mid-palate.

Finish: Long length. Stays well with some alcohol and more cherry, a little vanilla.

A mix of PX, red wine and Bourbon casks. But the PX is what stands out to me. Reminds me of a 3yo Wolfburn Sherry single cask I tried.

68/100

Thanks for reading!

English Whisky Review #5

Whisky Network Review #1025

Network Average: 75.2

Best Score: 94

Worst Score: 12

0-49 Terrible

50-59 Bad

60-64 Just About OK

65-69 Ok to Good

70-74 Good

75-79 Very Good

80-84 Excellent

85-89 Superb

90+ Magnificent

Full Disclosure Disclaimer: I currently work as the Global Brand Ambassador for Penderyn Distillery. The views expressed here are purely my own and do not reflect the views of Penderyn Distillery or The Welsh Whisky Company. I try to maintain as much objectivity as I can but feel free to take my reviews with as big a pinch of salt as you like. Furthermore, my rating scale is NOT based on a Parker type wine scoring scale or a school/college/university % or A-F grade score. You can find more on my scoring here. I apologise for any seemly low or 'bad' scores given with my system and I am sorry I can't say only nice things. Please keep in mind that I am ethically compromised and I am unable to produce 100% unbiased reviews.

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