Tag Archives: Cherries

Glenmorangie Finealta – A touch of peat, a dash of oloroso sherry & I’m a happy man with this elegant whisky

Highlands region — 46% ABV — $80 | £55 | €66

Ardbeg, Laphroaig, Port Ellen, Lagavulin, Ardmore, Port Charlotte, Bowmore, Bruichladdich… The list can go on.  What list?  The list of Scottish distilleries that produce, or bottlings that are known for, peaty, smokey, medicinal qualities.

There’s a new list though, Scottish distilleries that are now releasing peated whiskies: Arran, Benromach, Bunnahabhain, BenRiach… I am sure there are others (feel free to add to this list in the comments section of the post).

Apropos of peoples’ current thirst (or lust) for peated whisky, the Sixteen Men of Tain over at Glenmorangie are now throwing their hat in the peat ring.

Though, for the amount of peat or smoke in this whisky, it’s more like a yarmulke being thrown in the ring.

Actually, what we have here is not another peated whisky crafted for the sake of being a smokey.  Rather, according to Glenmorangie, they set out to recreate a recipe for a Glenmo whisky as it would have been made back in the early 1900’s.  So we have some minor peat here and the whisky is a mixture of both American Oak barrels and European Oak (ex-Oloroso Sherry casks).

The combination delivers pretty damn well:

On the nose Big cherry presence on the nose along with something minty.

An earthy quality to it – fresh potting soil, new ferns.

The peat in here is very light.

Toffee & caramel.

Cadbury fruit & nut bar.

Some soy sauce.

On the mouth Spiced orange gum drops.  Red ones too.

Lots of nuttiness and now some coffee tones in there.

Solid mouth feel here, folks!  Creamy, ooey – I love it.

Peppery and more soy sauce notes.

Again, lightly smoked & very elusive.

Finish Now quite tannic.  Quite long too.

The mild smoke returns for the finale.

In sum This here is a well designed whisky.  The light peating is a welcome thing as is the added element of whisky matured in Oloroso Sherry casks.  Pseudo-techno-stuff behind, this is a whisky that will put you in your happy spot.  Not because it’s 46% ABV alcohol whisky (and will tipsy-fy you) but because it’s just damned delicious and warming in all the right ways.

Special thanks goes out to David Blackmore for the generous sample!

Karuizawa 32yr Single cask – 1977 – Cask number 4592

Japan – 60.7%ABV – full bottle is 70cl, my sample from Master of Malt was 3cl – $243 | £150 | €173

This is not available in US stores and not available in a full bottle from MoM anymore though, as of November 8th, 2010, you can still get a 3cl sample for $14 | £8.65 | €10 – I’d grab a sample while you can.

We in the United States of America are deprived.  Deprived and sheltered I tells ya!  When it comes to whisky, Japanese whisky that is, we in the US don’t have much to choose from.  Please do not misunderstand – I’m not discounting the Japanese whiskies we do have.  The Yamazaki 12yr and 18yr whiskies are fantastic.  So is the Hibiki 12yr blended whisky (to be reviewed soon).  We do not have, however, any Nikka whiskies like the cask strength beauty “Nikka Whisky from the Barrel” or any of their Yoichi whiskies like their vintage and younger single cask series, 10yr, 12yr, 15yr, 20yr, etc…

On top of this (and many, many other great ones out there), we do not have local access to any Karuizawa.  A crying shame.

These 1977 single cask Karuizawa bottles sold out from Master of Malt in about a day (update — these bottles sold out in 17 minutes!).  At £150 each, that’s impressive (if’n you ask me).  I had to get a sample – a mere taste of this stuff to see what I was missing.

Thankfully, the good folks at Master of Malt were kind enough to gift me a sample (todah rabah, gracias, danke, you rock).

Beyond the tasting notes I’ve read (I usually try not to read other people’s tasting notes prior to a review of a gifted sample as I do not want to be influenced in any way), I was intrigued by how the color of this whisky was described.  The folks at Master of Malt say “the whisky is tinged slightly green in colour, a product of the cask maturation.”  Let’s see if they’re right…

ColorDeep gold – no, green.  No… gold.  Perhaps the color of oloroso sherry but with a tricked-out iridescence to it.  Very cool.

On the nose Big hot pokers up my big Jew nose – at 60.7% ABV, I shouldn’t expect much less.

Getting past this now…

Boiled red cherries and crushed sesame seeds.

Thick cut orange marmalade.

Sort of a meaty quality to it.

Swedish meatballs.

Deeply sweet and savory at the same time.

On the mouth Not as hot as the nose but there’s a big sumo pepper fight going on in my mouth.

Light and bright in both flavor and feel then, a savoriness kicks in…

Roasted walnuts.

After the second sip, the mouth feel changes completely – this is some big league chewy stuff.

Unlit cigars with a side of Godiva chocolates containing ooey cherry and raspberry filling.

Finish It’s all on bitter cherries and walnuts.

Long and pleasingly hot.

In sum This is a G-d damn powerhouse of a whisky!  I’d say I only scratched the surface of its complexity.  Flavor-wise the balance was impeccable; everything worked.  It was so dead on with the palate but the nose was a bit hot for me.  While I wanted to add water to calm the nose down, I was a bit nervous to adversely affect the flavors & mouthfeel so I just manned up and dealt with the heat on the nose.  This is a contemplative dram, there’s no doubt about it.

Kavalan Single Malt Whisky “Solist”, ex-sherry, cask strength

Taiwan – 58.7%ABV – 200ml sample (thanks to Ian Chang of Kavalan for the sample)

For the next two days, Gal of Whisky Israel and I will be sharing our thoughts on the Kavalan range.  While I’m not tasting these whiskies blindly, Gal and I will not be sharing our thoughts on these whiskies prior to our posting them.  Be sure to check out Gal’s notes on this whisky (a link to Gal’s review is listed below my notes).

I haven’t mentioned this is previous posts – the Kavalan range of whiskies are young.  Maturing in Taiwan where it’s hot as hell and humid as can be, the whisky’s maturation process is incredibly accelerated!  Given the weather conditions in Taiwan and the fact that they lose about 10% of their alcohol content every year (as opposed to the average 2% the Scots experience), the folks at Kavalan bottle this whisky at just three years of age (and they still get that beautiful deep sherry color!!).

So, let’s see how quick life in the cask translates to the final bottled product:

On the nose Big thick, rich and fruity nose.

Dried apricots soaked in sherry.

Stewed prunes and household cleaners.

Some interesting notes of buckwheat honey.

Hot sugary cinnamon.

Dark chocolate shavings.

On the mouth Young and hot (get your mind into the gutter, I mean out of… out of the gutter.).

Decent mouthfeel.

Ghirardelli cherry chocolate covered cherries.

Alcohol-logged Lincoln Logs.

Burning dry grass.

Chocolate Necco wafers.

Finish Short in flavor (quick bursts of cherry, honey and oak), long in burn.

In sum The youth in this whisky is obvious though not altogether bad.  I actually quite like the youthfulness.  If you’re a fan of the morning dram, this may be up your alley.  The perfect whisky to get you pumped up to shovel the snow in your driveway – winter is coming and here in Connecticut, it can be a doozy.  Now I know what to sip on when the snow piles up.

Be sure to read Gal’s great notes here.

The Great Space [Ardbeg Roller] Coaster

Islay region – 57.3%ABV – 750ml bottle (70cl outside of the US) – £100 | $80-$115 | €120

G-d bless Federal Wine & Spirits out of Boston, MA!  If it were not for them, I’m not sure I would have had my bottle of Ardbeg’s Committee Release of their Rollercoaster.

Those poor folks.

They announced that they were going to be getting some bottles early and was taking some pre-orders for it but did not know how many people may be calling them.  Harassing them for a bottle of this fine whisky.  I, good readers, was one of these people but I did my very best to be as *unharassy* as possible.  They told me they had “X” amount of bottles and “XXX” amount of people looking for one.  To make matters worse, their number of bottles went from a couple of cases down to 18 so now they had the hard job of telling even more people that they could not help them.

Those poor folks.  I hate saying no to anybody.  I feel sorry for them having to say no, to, my guess, a couple hundred people.

Luckily for me I was one of the first 18 people to call so, I got a bottle.  It took them a while to get through it all (my guess, about 3-4 weeks) but they eventually did get their bottles out and made 18 people (including myself) extremely happy.

While I was waiting for my bottle I made an agreement with Gal of Whisky Israel that I would hold off on opening the bottle so’s we could do a live Twitter tasting.

Well, Gal had issues of his own that I’m sure he’ll post about but let’s just say that waiting another 3-4 weeks to open my bottle just sort of… happened.

People who know me know that I am a patient guy.  So, no worries here.  But shit, I wanted to taste this nectar more than the folks who waited in line to taste New Coke way back when.  Thankfully Ardbeg’s Rollerocaster is FAR better that that short-lived shite!

While I did get around to tasting seven Ardbeg whiskies back in May, I only recently had a chance to taste the stuff as a stand alone whisky.

Let’s ride the coaster, shall we?

On the nose Part of me wishes that this is what oxygen smelled like all of the time.  However, if it did, then nosing this whisky would not be as special as it is.

A very, very sexy nose filled with mature-for-its-age-peat-smoke, a salt lick and olive oil.

Peel the smokiness away and I am now confronted with some strawberry jam and those delicious Ardbegian lemons – the salt carries through the entire nose-capade.

On the mouth A great entry here filled with savory bacon bits, tarred ropes and chicory.

Oily, like real olive oil in my mouth here, salted pie crust, onslaught of smokey peat, strawberries return and the citrus fruits evolve into something a bit bigger – pomelo!

Charred wood, cherries and tobacco.

Finish Medium long.  Lovely burny bubbles stay in my mouth for some time and then out of the blue some nice green tea notes.

In sumWell worth the wait.

A fantastic dram that, although amazingly smokey, is so very fruity for me (Lemons, Pomelo, Strawberries, Cherries).

Also, the peat seemed less of a direct attack on my tongue that I could enjoy this one in the late spring (winter for sure) and the autumn time.

A cracker of a dram that I hope Ardbeg will bring in as a standard expression.

One of the things I love about whisky is that everyone can take something different from them.  Chicory to me may be chipotle to another.  This being said, check out Jason from Guid Scotch Drink’s notes on this beauty – a world a difference but I would still drink the stuff if I got what he wrote in his notes.

MacKillop’s Choice Highland Park Single Cask 1981/2006 – Independent bottling

Islands – 56.3%ABV – 700ml bottle – Price ?? I could not find this bottle available at any of the shops I frequent – Thanks to “O.K.” for the sample! (Note: the picture shown is for the 1985 version, not the 1981 as I had tasted)

This will be sort of a shorter review today.  Or at least, the lead up to the actual tasting.  Truth be told, this one took a lot out of me.  The whisky (specifically, the nose) was quite demanding and I’m not sure I was up to the challenge.  Yes, I think I gave it a fair shake (or maybe I gave myself the shake) but it took a while for all to be revealed.

They say good things come to those who wait.  Maybe I was too impatient.  You can decide for yourself…

On the noseMan, this whisky needs some time to open up.  A few minutes and some nice cherry notes are revealed along with an overall saltiness to it – quite oceanic but at high tide, not a fishy low tide type ocean scent to it.

The nose is brisk and has just a mere hint of smoke (think pipe tobbaco – fragrant).  A few extra minutes and the nose opens more giving me some nice orange notes (Mineola to be exact, very tart).  With a few drops of water some buttery notes come out and it get ever so floral.  I love this nose but I had to dig and wait quite a bit for the scents to show themselves.

On the mouthHold on here, this is quite a departure from the nose.  The flavors are not subtle here, you don’t have to work quite as hard – fresh grassy notes and bitter fruits, a good amount of pepper (think cayenne with out the burn).

I think I need to add some water here (it did wonders for the nose) — the mouth feel gets chewy and some white pepper comes out as does something quite sweet thought I can’t put my finger on it.

Finish A long finish.  The orangey notes remain as does the pepper.

In sumPart of me felt like a paranormal investigator here.  I knew I had a “spirit” nearby but the nose made me want to scream “Show Yourself!!”  Thank G-d for the palate and finish though, it really came through.  In the end, a nice single cask whisky but I’m not sure it was worth all the trouble.