Last night I was at a tasting with an interesting concept named the Battle of the Stunners. Two challengers (Malt Maniac Bert Bruyneel and The Bonding Dram owner Jeroen Moernaut) picked one bottle for each of 5 categories with a maximum bottle price of € 50. The audience evaluates each combo blind and singles out one of the two bottles. The challenger with the best bottles wins the battle.

This was the line-up:

• Nikka All Malt vs. Isle of Skye 8yo
• The Spice Tree (v.2) vs. Amrut single cask #2930 for Crombé
• Arran 1998 single cask #700 vs. Glenmorangie Astar
• Amrut Fusion vs. BenRiach Arumaticus Fumosus
• Connemara Ambassador’s Choice vs. Laphroaig 10yo CS (batch 001) 

The choices of the public are in bold, although I have to say I had a different opinion on the second and third combo. Jeroen, who selected the first bottle of each combo, won 4-1. Congratulations!

It was an entertaining evening. My personal conclusion would be that malts from outside of Scotland offer great value for money, certainly in this price range. Also, it seemed to me a general public prefers bottles that have common (easy) flavours rather than complex (more difficult, but for me more interesting) profiles. Anyway, I swooped a couple of samples and will revisit some of these whiskies over the next few weeks.