Ballantine's - 17 Year Old.

Nose: deft grain and honey plus teasing salty peat; ultra high quality with bourbon and pear drops offering the thrust; a near unbelievable integration with gooseberry juice offering a touch of sharpness muted by watered golden syrup.

Taste: immediately mouth-watering with maltier tones clambering over the graceful cocoa-enriched grain; the degrees of sweetness are varied but near perfection; just hints of smoke here and there.

Finish: lashings of vanilla and cocoa on the fade; drier with a faint spicy, vaguely smoky buzz; has become longer with more recent batting's with the most subtle oiliness imaginable.

Balance: now only slightly less weighty than of old. After a change of style direction it has comfortably reverted back to its sophisticated, mildly erotic old self. One of the most beautiful, complex and stunningly structured whiskies ever created. Truly the epitome of great Scotch. To the extent that for the last year, I have simply been unable to find a better whisky anywhere in the world.

97.5 Points - Jim Murray's 2011 Whisky Bible.