Compass Box Secrets of Smoke Is a Tasty New Blend

Welcome to Taste Test, where every week our critic Jonah Flicker explores the most buzzworthy and interesting whiskeys in the world. Check back each Sunday for his latest whiskey review.

Single malts get all the love, but the fact is that blended scotch is the people’s champ, outselling the latter by a wide margin. That’s driven by the big brands, of course, with Johnnie Walker, Dewar’s, and Chivas Regal leading they way. Those are all good whiskies, but one company has been making blends that are just a little more interesting and a lot more transparent: Compass Box. The latest release, Secrets of Smoke, is an attempt to show that even heavily peated whisky can have an underlying sweetness and complexity to it—a theory that holds up, and might even appeal to people who don’t normally enjoy smoky whisky.

Compass Box was founded in 2000, and a quarter century on the whiskymakers (as the company likes to call its team) are still sourcing and blending malt and grain whiskies and coming up with fantastic new creations. Founder John Glaser left Compass Box last year, a few years after a London investment group acquired a majority stake in the company, but during his tenure he spearheaded some unique and occasionally playful whiskies. Just look at the 3 Year Old Deluxe expression from a few years back, which contained only 1 percent of that youngest component as a little dig at the Scotch Whisky Association’s regulation that an age statement must reflect the youngest liquid in the bottle (overall, that’s a good rule, by the way).

Secrets of Smoke is a new limited-edition blended malt (there is no grain whisky component in the mix) that uses wine cask maturation (both regular and fortified) to unlock the sweetness lying underneath the intense smokiness of the peated malts involved. The specific whiskies and proportions used in this expression are as follows: about a third each of the Peat Monster blended malt (a Compass Box whisky) aged in red wine barrels and Caol Ila single malt aged in palo cortado sherry casks (a style of sherry used sparingly in the whisky industry); about 22 percent Ardmore single malt aged in sherry casks; almost 6 percent Laphroaig single malt aged in marsala barrels; a dash of Bowmore single malt aged in bourbon barrels; and a bit of an un-named blended malt. Secrets of Smoke was bottled at 52 percent ABV and is non-chill filtered.

This is a lovely new blend. The sweetness that is promised definitely shines through, but it’s soft instead of cloying. Smoke is, of course, the main player on the palate as you sip, with big notes of campfire, burning peat, and some iodine that lead the way. Layered just underneath are the sweeter elements, with notes of honey, cherry syrup, dark and milk chocolate, and toasted nuts popping up. Adding water is not really necessary at 104 proof, but a splash or two opens the whisky up a bit and reveals some citrus and caramel notes.

As good as Secrets of Smoke is, I’m not saying you should stop drinking single malts and switch to blends. I’m not even suggesting that you forget about those much more affordable and available bottles of blended scotch mentioned before. But I think it would be wise to add Compass Box to your list of go-to scotch whiskies if you haven’t tried it before, and pick up this new bottle if you’re already a fan of the brand—even if you don’t think smoky whisky is your thing.

Score: 89