My Top Shelf.

Left to right...

Laphroaig 10 Year Old Single Malt.
Colour: Full sparkling gold.
Nose: Huge smoke, seaweedy, "medicinal", with a hint of sweetness.
Body: Full bodied.
Taste: Suprising sweetness with hints of salt and layers of peatiness.
Finish: Lingering.
Powerful stuff. My first love when it comes to single malts. I've had dalliances with others, but keep coming back to this. Maybe Ardbeg just shades Laphroaig as my favourite Islay - just that little bit more sophisticated.

Talisker 10 Year Old Single Malt.
Colour: Deep gold.
Nose: Powerful peat-smoke with sea-water saltiness, the liquor of fresh oysters, a citrus sweetness.
Taste: A rich dried-fruit sweetness with clouds of smoke and strong barley-malt flavours, warming and intense. At the back of the mouth is an explosion of pepper.
Finish: Huge, long, warming peppery finish with an appetising sweetness.
This is a special edition that gave money from each bottle to the RNLI.

Glenfiddich Solera Reserve 15 Year Old
Nose: A full and fruity nose, with delicate honey and vanilla notes.
Taste: The taste is elegantly smooth, with a deep flavour that reveals fruit, gentle spice and a touch of oak.
Finish: The finish is long and satisfying.
Really easy drinking this. In fact, far too easy drinking!

Glenmorangie Cellar 13 Single Malt.
Nose: As sweet as the colour, mellow and very complex, there's coconuts in the beginning, also lots of white chocolate, noisette praliné, buttered shortbread and caramel with soft traces of baking spices (cinnamon).
Taste: Very firm and present at first, later there's a very remarkable and pleasant saltiness mingling with a subtle sweetness. Vanilla, honey, white chocolate again and in the back very smooth gingerbread notes - with water those are come a few steps more clearly in the foreground.
Finish: Medium till short, in the beginning it is a very beautiful finish, very nice bitter oakwood notes add very pleasureful insights, but! they leave quickly and fade into the feel of white sugar cubes and then ... nothing
A really complicated taste. This stuff sits in one cask and in the one cellar (number 13) for the whole ten years that it is ageing (which is unusual). This store is closest to the sea of the Glenmorangie cellars and so it tastes different to the rest.
This was a christmas present. Normally it is only available from duty-free shops. This was my very favourite...

The Glenlivet 12 Year Old Single Malt.
Colour: Light or pale gold.
Nose: Aromatic, with flowers. Clean and simple, with some maltiness. Sherry notes, some spice and vanilla.
Taste: Subtle peatiness. Delicate. Slightly sweet and fruity, with vanilla notes. Clean and well-balanced.
Finish: Long, but mild and warming. A trace of peat at the end.

The Macallan 18 year old Fine Oak Triple Cask Matured Highland Scotch Whisky.
Nose: Heady exotic floral aroma, with hints of jasmine, tropical fruits and peat.
Palate: Soft and rich, with hints of citrus, spice and wood smoke.
Finish: Lingering, with hints of orange zest.
A wedding present and really very special. This stuff is so good, it is difficult to actually comprehend how tasty it is. So much is going on in your mouth that you almost need to shut down your other senses to stand any chance. My new favourite.

The Dalmore 15 Year Old.
Colour: Rich, deep, golden mahogany.
Nose: Intense and firm. Well structured with silky smooth malty tones - a hint of Oloroso sherry lingers in the background. It shows great finesse, extolling fragrances of orange, marmalade and spiced notes.
Taste: Good attack on the mouth, more elegance than muscle. The aged Oloroso butts smooth its rich, fleshy body with great harmony. Almost a concentrated citric mouth-feel captivates and tantalises the middle part of your tongue.
Finish: An aftertaste of great abundance rewards the palate. A Highland malt of great distinction.I haven't actually tried this yet, but everything I read about it raves about the depth of the taste and fragrance.

I can't claim to be any kind of expert (the descriptions above were taken from the on-line fetishist's store The Whisky Exchange, but I know what I like and can think of many worse ways to waste the extra cash.