One of the things that no one tells you when you’re young, is that you don’t have to live every single day with the throttle pressed to the floor, hurtling from one minute to the next without stopping to relax and bask in the warmth of the midday sun. For some insane, inexplicable reason, our species is locked in a pattern of cradle-to-grave servitude that’s enforced by a false credo of success, an idea that tells us that happiness can only be achieved by becoming the envy of our peers and fulfilling the meritless prophecy of being he, or she, who dies with the most toys. 

Contrary to the aforementioned populist notion of how to achieve contentment, happiness and those all too rare blink and you’ll miss them fleeting moments of joy, are, as we all inevitably discover when we sail into our fourth decade, found in the small things, like watching the sun rise over Lake Buena Vista, the lazy burble of a V8, reading Frank Miller’s Daredevil run for the first time, listening to the Bad Religion discography, the smell of freshly brewed coffee or a glass of good single malt like Nc’nean.

Scratch that from the record. This isn’t a good single malt, it’s an incredible single malt, that’s imbued with a sense of place and purpose, and every sip feels like history in the making. Possessing an almost peach-like sweetness that’s rounded out with vanilla and a delicate heat that’s more akin to a ten-year-old bourbon than a traditional whisky, Nc’nean’s single malt reminds you that it’s okay to take a moment and let the unfettered bliss that accompanies true happiness wash over you. 

And it’s all too easy to lose yourself in the swirling, pleasurable fog that the first, second, third, fourth, and more sips of this whisky bring, but as it weighs in at a more than impressive 46% ABV, my advice is to do what I did. Drink it slowly, make those moments last, and enjoy every second that you spend in the company of this astonishing single malt…  Tim Cundle