North British 23 Year 1995 Old Particular (Douglas Laing)

(From a virtual tasting event held on Saturday, July 25th, 2020, by a spirits company in Glasgow). Nose: Resembles boiled sweets and butterscotch, creating a very sweet aroma. Palate: Notes of golden syrup, toffee, nutmeg, and buttered popcorn. There's a subtle, slightly discordant 'funk' beneath the sweetness. Finish: A prolonged finish dominated by grain and syrup flavors, with a slight sourness at the very end. Adding water mellows the spirit, diminishing the funk and some of the citrus notes. While I generally don't favor grain whiskies, this is a respectable dram that I would happily consume again. Out of the six spirits tasted during the event, this one received 17% of the votes for favorite, tying for second place. However, the general sentiment was that all six were very closely matched and difficult to distinguish.