Early April 2016 Outturn Offerings
Cask No. 66.59 $125
Nieve de Leche Quemada
Highland, Eastern
Initial aromas of delicate smoke gave way to violets, roses, drawer liners, icing sugar and lemon and lime slices. To taste neat there were prawns on a BBQ, smoked limes, oyster shells and a smouldering peat hearth. One panellist was making Nieve de Leche Quemada (Mexican burnt milk ice cream) in the kitchen. A splash of water brought aniseed balls to a swimming pool, while smoked orange oil, poster paints, pencils and Worcestershire sauce on cheesy toast were all present. The taste was sweeter and slightly chalky with well-done toast and Parma Violet sweets. A truly sunny coastal finish with a salty breeze, sea spray, skittles, lobster shells and French fries.
Drinking tip: Drink at a BBQ on a speedboat
Colour: Sunlight on a lake
Cask: Refill barrel
Age: 12 years
Date distilled: November 2001
Alcohol: 57.4%
USA allocation: 120 bottles
Flavour profile: Lightly peated
*President’s Choice*
Cask No. 46.29 $135
Shaken not stirred
Speyside, Lossie
Young Bond prepared the ingredients for his cocktail: bruised mint, Gomme syrup, pink peppercorn and aromatic cherry and violet. As he mixed his ingredients for this Old Fashioned together he scanned the scene, it was a bit of a mystery. A large arrangement of flowers was the first observation. A table set with a curious collection: Fox Glacier mints, chocolate chip ice cream, Jolly Jammers and salted limes. He sipped his cocktail and enjoyed it’s sprightly kick. The perfumed scent of some exotic beauty lingered. He investigated further finding cream soda, marshmallow and Kendal Mint Cake. What did it all mean?
Drinking tip: When you’re saving the world
Colour: Gold fountain pen (that’s really a poison pen)
Cask: Refill hogshead
Age: 14 years
Date distilled: September 2000
Alcohol: 59.1%
USA allocation: 120 bottles
Flavour profile: Young & spritely
Cask No. 55.26 $135
Outdoor, masculine dram
Speyside, Findhorn
The nose was complex and interesting – sweet and spicy with some cosmetics and light struck match, plus an array of outdoor impressions (earthy, grassy, ripe fruits, wood sap, twigs and riverbanks). It seemed fresher with water (peach melba yoghurt, leaf mould, washing blowing in the breeze) though one panellist got a rugby player’s kit-bag. The palate however had massive, intense sweetness and mouth-scorching peppery, ginger heat – panellists reported Vimto concentrate and rhubarb dipped in brown sugar. With water, we found toffee, butterscotch, Old English spangles and ice-cream soda, with a few more masculine hints of mint tic-tacs, old wood and allotments.
Drinking tip: Benefits from water and the attraction is mostly in the taste – a drinker’s, rather than a sniffer’s, dram.
Colour: Golden retriever puppy
Cask: Refill hogshead
Age: 14 years
Date distilled: September 2000
Alcohol: 57.3%
USA allocation: 120 bottles
Flavour profile: Spicy & sweet
Cask No. 26.105 $220
Bumblebees by the sea
Highland, Northern
The first aromas were predominantly dark runny honey over crackers, followed by salted lemon and fresh kiwi fruit. With time, camphor and citronella candles burning in a damp pine forest. Juicy Fruit gum emerged on the nose and in the taste. It retained a white peppery heat at full strength, with lemon zest and lime posset emerging. Aspen bark, cinnamon and spearmint all became easier to find with water as if they had all been washed up on a seashore. A muskiness reminiscent of coastal dunnage warehouses belied its age, but homemade lemonade and green Starbursts lifted any hint of heaviness.
Drinking tip: Have a light hand with water
Colour: Honey on a gold spoon
Cask: Refill butt
Age: 29 years
Date distilled: November 1984
Alcohol: 57.6%
USA allocation: 150 bottles
Flavour profile: Light & delicate
Cask No. 53.226 $140
Teddy Boys at the beach
Islay
Rock (pool) and roll! Bad boys set an old boat alight with a splash of diesel, clean smoke puffing into the sky. They drink pisco sours and eat pork rolls with gherkin pickle, followed by baked corn pudding. Splashing sea water fizzes on the fire and sparks of pickled ginger and salted lemon fly. Hints of oregano and roll-ups waft together with an oily slick on the shore. They kick an old rubber tyre around and flick each other with a tarry rope. Olive oil cake with lemon icing, pickled onions with cream cheese and mackerel complete the beastie.
Drinking tip: Unleash your inner rockabilly
Colour: Dirty martini with green olives
Cask: Refill hogshead
Age: 15 years
Date distilled: March 2000
Alcohol: 63.5%
USA allocation: 90 bottles
Flavour profile: Oily & coastal
Cask No. 48.46 $125
Exploding flower
Speyside, Spey
The nose started with linoleum and green leaf, but slowly opened like a flower – vanilla sponge, Danish pastries, toffee, some fruit (strawberry, banana) and floral notes (gentian, rosewater, gorse). The neat palate was assertive, but complex and unusually bitter-sweet – ‘biting an orange’, tutti-frutti, jelly beans – one panellist found a honey, vodka and gunpowder mixture, but he self-combusted and didn’t trouble us anymore. With water, the nose became freshly intriguing, with tinned fruit salad, old-fashioned lemonade, tree-bark, liquorice and menthol. The palate was now really rather pleasant – juicy, sweet and refreshing, with peach and pear balancing clove and aniseed spice.
Drinking tip: Improves with water – would be a suitable conversational dram – or maybe with dessert.
Colour: Yellow gold
Cask: First-fill barrel
Age: 12 years
Date distilled: November 2001
Alcohol: 57.4%
USA allocation: 60 bottles
Flavour profile: Sweet, fruity and mellow
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