July 2013 Leaflet Outturn Offerings 

President’s Choice – Cask No. 30.71 

Burnt crumpet and Highland Toffee 

Cask No. 30.71                                  $115

Speyside, Spey

As one we cried: “burnt buttery crumpet spread with chunky Dundee marmalade” – later it became “spread with dark comb honey” – and some noted strawberry fudge and McCowans Highland Toffee as well. The taste at natural strength was sweet and saccharine-bitter, with warm spiced rum, and some sherry in the aftertaste. Water inevitably raised sulphur to start – boiled eggs and struck matches – but then creamy treacle toffee, dried cranberries and flowering currant bushes. The texture is luscious; the taste of liquid caramel, with pleasant bitterness: salted caramels ‘robed’ in dark chocolate. A Top Class Speyside, not a new town…

Drinking tip: For sharing at dusk with good friends

Colour: Deep amber with scarlet lights                       Date distilled: April 1997

Cask: Refill Sherry gorda                                     Alcohol: 57.5%

Age: 14 years                                               USA allocation: 114 bottles 

Sugared almonds in a mattress factory 

Cask No. 31.23                                  $155

Highland, Island

The intriguing nose delivered dried fruits and mixed nuts, toffee, green malt, mouse-trap cheese with a black, sooty fireplace grate somewhere in the background. The palate was pleasantly sweet yet robust – with moist iced gingerbread, liquorice, salt, smoke and chalky, limestone, earthy elements. The reduced nose turned somewhat fatty and savoury, like leg of lamb or the wrapping of a haggis supper – also cigarette papers and a mineral beach, with salt marshes nearby. The palate now floral and sweet suggested sugared almonds and iced gems in a coil-sprung mattress factory. The distillery, designed by architect William Delmé-Evans, was built around 1960.

Drinking tip: To take in a hip-flask up the Paps of Jura (or any other hill)

Colour: Old gold                                                                Date distilled: September 1988

Cask: Refill hogshead                                                       Alcohol: 51.7%

Age: 23 years                                               USA allocation: 90 bottles 

Big, brooding, masculine and intense 

Cask No. 33.122                               $85

Islay

Peat-smoked fire bricks, tarred ropes, lobster pots on old boats, Fisherman’s Friends, sweet scallops, seaweed, coconut husk doormats, barbecued sausages – that was the nose. The palate was a massive, tongue-roasting, smack in the face (ash, smoking charcoal, charred sausages and black pudding, over-done crême brûlée and lime); but somehow calming with its vanilla ice-cream sweetness. The reduced nose – dunnage warehouses, oily, herby, peaty, oaky, burnt toast – fascinating. The palate remained big, brooding, masculine and intense, with over-roasted vegetables, flamed chorizo and some plastic, soapy resonances (manly version of rubber duckies at bathtime?). Now Islay’s only distillery with a Jack Russell.

Drinking tip: Has the power to revive – perhaps late evening, watching Zombie movies?

Colour: Sunflower diffused gold                              Date distilled: February 2005

Cask: First-fill barrel                                                           Alcohol: 59.7%

Age: 7 years                                                USA allocation: 96 bottles 

An apple a day… 

Cask No. 84.15                                  $100

Speyside, Spey

The initial nose without water is very fruity and sweet; rich red apples, ripe bananas, candid pears as well as lemon drizzle cake and Danish pastry. With time deeper notes like toffee and chocolate éclair emerge. The taste neat is hot like biting on a chilli, also fresh oak and expensive apple schnapps. With the generous addition of water grapefruit and lime appear next to – you have guessed it already I am sure – apple sorbet ice cream, candid apple and Campino candy. The taste is now that of chocolate limes, peaches and apricots but also Appletiser and a spritzy apple wine mixed with sparkling water what makes this a very refreshing drink indeed.

Drinking tip: Picking apples on a sunny autumn day

Colour: White silver                                                           Date distilled: October 2001

Cask: Refill barrel                                                               Alcohol: 56.4%

Age: 11 years                                               USA allocation: 96 bottles 

Orange Blossom Honey Straws 

Cask No. 85.25                                  $115

Speyside, Lossie

First impression the Panel voiced, this is a sniffers dram; glue, solventy and warm paper from a photocopier in use a few decades ago, you know what we mean. With time fruity/earthy notes appear like apple, banana leaf, aloe plant, cactus and mango trees; we have moved into a glass house at the Botanics. The taste is hot, sweet/sour, a creamy horseradish and almost numbing. With water we left the glasshouse and are outside in a tropical garden during a very heavy downpour. It feels hot, wet and damp with floral and fruity aromas all around us. The taste now sweet, like a very ripe orange, creamy like vanilla custard as well as fresh like an apple sorbet. This distillery, starting with Glen, is named after Scotland’s smallest city.

Drinking tip: When in need of a sugar rush

Colour: Lion’s paw                                                            Date distilled: October 1999

Cask: Refill hogshead                                                       Alcohol: 56.3%

Age: 13 years                                               USA allocation: 84 bottles

Please visit the Scotch Malt Whisky Society at http://www.smwsa.com/