From Scotch Highlands to Kentucky bourbon, from London dry gin to Caribbean rum — your comprehensive guide to the world's finest distilled spirits, with in-depth tasting notes, distillery profiles and classic cocktail recipes.
Few whiskies polarise opinion quite like Laphroaig. The medicinal, seaweed-and-iodine character that many find off-putting is precisely what devotees travel from across the world to taste at the distillery on the southern shores of Islay. We spend a week with the 10-year-old expression to understand what makes it one of the most recognisable whiskies ever made.
A second maturation in deeply toasted new oak barrels creates layers of dried fruit and dark chocolate rarely found in standard bourbons.
Distilled with fresh whole citrus fruits, the No. Ten expression represents a step-change from the original formula — brilliant in a Martinez.
The grassy, vegetal freshness of freshly crushed sugarcane juice sets agricole apart from molasses-based rums entirely. This blanc is elemental.
WEST was founded in 2021 as a free, independent encyclopaedia of distilled spirits. We believe that great whisky, gin, rum and cognac should be accessible to anyone willing to learn — not gatekept behind jargon and snobbery.
Our tasting notes are written by a small team of enthusiasts who pay for their own bottles. We accept no advertising from producers, no sponsored reviews, no press samples. Every score reflects honest opinion.
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