#Heelslayer: Glenmorangie 15 (Old Distillery Bottling, 15 Years, 43% ABV)

    This week's #Heelslayer dram comes from the distillery claiming "the tallest stills in Scotland" (I think I've heard that from others too, much like the 'oldest' distillery claims), Glenmorangie.  This is a rather special bottle though, as this comes from the era before the Louis Vuitton Moët Hennesy takeover in 2004.  This 15 year old bottle, served at 43% ABV hails from about the mid to late 1990's, and comes from a time when production was a little more detail oriented, and less factory produced whisky.  Still aged in the classic Bourbon-only style of Glenmorangie, this has long been a favorite of the both the collector and the GlenMo fan. Let's delve into the hell of this bottle and I'll tell you why.

• Colour:  Autumn gold with hints of amber.  There's no indication of colouring on the label so I'll assume it has some caramel in it, albeit rather light.

• Body:  An oily medium that wanes toward the thin side.  No mention of filtration type, but considering this stays crystal clear in a -30 car ride... it's pretty heavily chill-filtered.

• Nose:  Holy cow!  Vanilla city, pudding, white flowers and soft malt notes.  The rich malty backbone plays with hints of sweet corn and apricot cobbler.  Peaches, stone fruits and melted vanilla ice cream.  In the background there are subtle notes of jasmine and herbal green tea with a hazelnut twist.  The nose swims with so much vanilla, almost overpoweringly sweet, but so delicious.

• Palate:  Sweet cornbread, malt syrup and peach compote.  Sublime wood spice notes (fenugreek with hints of cinnamon, clove and nutmeg), drive the mid palate as oily malt notes lift the bottom.  Toasted oak and cream flourish here with subtle hints of lilac and more jasmine green tea again.  Towards the end Tellicherry black pepper, stone fruits and more herbal notes come forward as the sweet creaminess abates.  The malt shows great depth throughout the dram.

• Finish: Sweet creamy malt and deeply complex oak.  White flowers again provide highlights as does sweet black tea and some hints s of brine.  Vanilla oils, shortbread and hints of oak char.  Wood spices are diluted here, but still present and have picked up an almost cedar note.

• Empty Glass:  Peach Melba and more white tea this time.  There's a doughy middle note and some herb-ed liqueur and roasted malt.  The sweetness continues through the empty glass, with malted milk chocolate sweets and Applejack. 

     I actually noted in my notebook on two different tastings of this that 'I will miss this bottle when it's gone.'  It's like an improved-upon 10 year old Glenmorangie Original: oilier, heavier and with more wood presence but with all the rich vanilla sweetness that you've come to love.  I can't help but wonder why this was discontinued, and more importantly where the quality has gone.  This dram is hands down my favorite Glenmorangie of recent tastings, save some independent bottlings, and it bears to mind the quality shift of all the Glenmorangie offerings.

     With the recent limited releases like Tùsail, glimpses of this distillery's true character are still present, albeit now a manufactured façade.  I understand the same quality of barrels are no longer present (LVMH uses Jack Daniels and Heaven Hill primarily for the GlenMo10), and the quality of engineered barley is now very different from years past.  I think that whisky, like comedy, should come naturally, and cannot be forced.  Stepping off my soapbox; keep your stick on the ice and the ice out of your glass.

#Heelslayer: 1995 Ben Nevis (Blackadder Clydesdale Label, 15 Years, 59.5% ABV NCA/NCF)

     Well it's been a while, and a crazy summer for myself!  It seems like it's hard to settle down and write something meaningful and eloquent when it's so nice outside.  Instead of penning another ode to a dram, I've searched my open bottles and decided to write out some notes on my heels.  Below is the first of my tasting notes on a selection of drams from my #heelslayer weekend project.

     First up come form the dew of Ben Nevis... or so they call it.  Long John McDonald founded the distillery in 1825 at the foot of Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in the United Kingdom, where the cool mountain air condenses into the two pools from which the distillery draws her water. Popular enough that by 1878 a second distiller had to be built next door which eventually was amalgamated back into the Ben Nevis of today.  The most recent change of hands in 1989, was to the Japanese Nikka company, who still produces the malt to this day.

     The bottle that I'm reviewing today comes form the Clydesdale independent bottler lineup under the Blackadder label.  Aged 15 years in sherry cask (likely a refill), number 0350/2626 and bottled at a whopping 59.5% ABV without any chill filtration or colouring.  I tried this bottle many moons ago and was astonished that something so high on the ABV scale could seem so approachable.  This was my first foray into cask strength drams, and it was a more that pleasant experience, and cemented my love of independent drams that can actually display the  character of the distillery.

• Colour:  Bright straw gold.  No colour added.

• Body:  Thin to medium.  Very tiny drops and thin legs, slow run back to the glass.  No chill filtration happening here either!

• Nose:  Bright and lively!  Hay (cut and dried), and fruits., hints of flowers and very subtle malt.  Rich pastry notes with apricot and peach schnapps.  Pineapple upside down cake, hints of vanilla and varnish.  Yellow plums, flint and dry cocoa in the bottom with hints of lemon and mint in the background. 

• Palate:  Surprising power here, but not in the way you'd think.  That almost 60% ABV still comes across as soft and dignified like a 43-46% dram.  The power comes with the wallop of flavour it brings with it!  Spice and wood notes start up with a brine note playing second fiddle.  The malt comes in strong next with more pineapple in tow.  A warm fruit compote with some sort of... what I can only describe as yellow flowers.  Roots and rich gobs of dried fruit (papaya), shortly follow this up with a wood smoke or cocoa dryness.  The cocoa comes in a little more strongly as it transitions towards the finish with just a slight hint of struck match  in the background.

• Finish:  The heat shows up here from the ABV, but it still doesn't overwhelm the finish. Daisy... or maybe cooked daisies with more yellow plums (also cooked).  Good dutch cocoa and more toasted oak here.  Some astringent notes, specifically astringent peach, and a rather hot dryness.  The dryness is very welcome as shortly afterwards your mouth begins watering; yearning for the next sip!

• Empty Glass: Wood smoke and cherry cough syrup.  Coffee dregs and pineapple vodka (not sweet though).  Wood spices and play-dough , citrus and some bitter almond in the bottom.  Almost hints of grilled peach and fruit salts (is there such a thing as fruit salt?  I'm thinking a salt that has a yellow fruit note...).

    What can I say?  This was a fantastic dram, filled with stone fruit, yellow flowers and malty goodness.  Loads of baking spices in the palate and a finish that leaves your mouth watering, leaving  you craving another.  I was amazed that high ABV could come across so smoothly, which attests to the quality of the spirit; it even fooled me on my first tasting.  Water tames some of the wood spices and brings a more soft floral malty note to the whisky, but it doesn't seem to be needed in this dram.  Should you ever see this listed in a bar, I highly recommend that you taste it as I don't think you'll be disappointed.  Until next time: keep your stick on the ice and the ice out of your glass.

Tasting Notes: Clynelish 1990 (Dun Bheagan, 22 Years Old, Port Hogshead Finished, 46% ABV)

    Well dram-mates, It would seem it's time for an update on tasting notes.  I recently hit up a local LCBO to my neighbourhood and found a tasty treat that I've been hunting for a while.  A few weeks back the LCBO released a varied group of products, including a few new bottles of Scotch, one of which is a 22 year old Clynelish.  Hailing form the Highlands region, this distillery is a favourite of many whisky buffs, and its sister distillery, Brora, is one of the most highly collected, and overpriced, whiskies on the market at this time.  The distillery features a somewhat fruitier malt, with subtle (sometimes), hints of coastal  or waxy notes to it.  As such, it's usually on my list of distilleries for hunting out reasonably-priced bottles.

  This bottling is brought to us by Dun Bheagan (pronounced done vey-gan; like the name Megan).  It was distilled December 1990 and bottled in mid 2013.  It's comprised of 2 casks (#93781 & 93783), which are cobbled together to form Port hogsheads.  Served without the 'aid' of chill-filtration or the addition of artificial colour, this is right up a whisky buff's alley.  However intriguing, at $220.95 [SKU #371013], my whisky-spider sense was tingling and warning me Caveat Emptor.  I typically shy away from expensive bottles at the LCBO  for two reasons: one - they are are not worthy of the high price tag, and two - they typically have little to no information provided about them to make a good judgment call.  So instead of buying an expensive, but intriguing bottle, I waited until one came up for tasting.  Sure enough I found one; and below are my notes.

Dun Bheagan Clynelish 22 Years (Port Hogshead, NCA, NCF, 46% ABV):

Colour: Bright rose gold; no colour added.

Body: Medium but oily, no chill-filtration. Upon first roll of the glass, the drops almost don't seem to want to form.  They do eventually and the legs slowly run (looks like a whack of flavour).


Nose: First crack at the bat, heavy fruits!  Rich red fruits, like overripe strawberry and hints of overripe cherry, with a dash of plums thrown in for good measure.  This sort of dwindles out into some more stone fruits (apricot, peach and the like). That was a little weird; Clynelish isn't usually this type of fruity.  Rotten peaches and old oak, like sun baked picnic tables.  Hints of moss and black pepper wash into some farm-y notes (that's manure, straw and livestock... things that smell bad in your home actually taste quite good in whisky). As it settles out, the farminess becomes stronger, but not to the level of a typical Clynelish; it's still overshadowed by the macerated red fruits.

Palate: Wow! A wallop in the tongue of sharp oak!  Black pepper follows up with its crew of wood spices (cardamon, and cassia).  After the invasion of wood power, the malt slowly comes out from under the shadow.  Malty notes mingled with nectarines (not sweet, just the smell), and far off in the background is a hint of brine.  There is surprisingly little sweetness in this dram - given time it does come forth.  The complaint is that the tannin/wine in the finish wood are far overpowering the soft and delicate malt notes that you should expect in a 22 year old whisky.

Finish: The wood spice continues to stomp all over the finish.  Harsh oak tannin and sharp cassia (Cinnamon's hotter/rougher cousin - think Cinnabon cinnamon), some twinged notes of vanilla extract (the good 35% ABV stuff; which isn't that pleasant to drink but wonderful to nose), and some strawberry cream.  As it dissolves, the malty notes and more red fruit comes through but never enough to save the dram.

Empty Glass:  Lots of wood here (this is where you can usually get a sense of the casks used in the whisky).  There is a huge offering of wood spice (again), both old wood and new, much younger wood.  There is also a dry wine note; not even the red fruity note from before.  Once again, the tannins come through quite strongly.


   Adding water brings more stewed fruits to the nose, and nectarines (still not sweet nectarines though).  It takes even more settling out to get to the malt behind the finish.  When the coastal nature starts to come forth, it does so in spades.  More hints of brine and sweet malt appear, and the farmy notes seems to become more readily available.  The palate, however, suffers with the addition of water; becoming somewhat sweeter with the fruity malt playing lead.  That tannic note showed up again and lead to a bitter finish.
  
    All in all, it's not a bad dram, but there are a few caveats to this.  My suspicion is that it was over-wooded in the original casks, and this has been subdued with the Port finish.  Although this Port finish may have helped the original over-wooding, it overwhelms the old malt, taking over the soft and subtle notes with a brash red fruit wash.  It's sort of a shame; but not completely undrinkable.  Overall, I would have guessed this was a 12-15 year old port finish Clynelish, not a 22.  Seeing as it is overpriced to begin with as a 22 year old, it is even more-so when you're not experiencing the full age benefit. There is a wonderful Clynelish under there, its just buried.

     In conclusion, this bottle doesn't make the grade and will not join my collection, but it was worth the taste.  Remember that whisky tasting is a subjective thing, and you may enjoy this heavily wooded dram more than I did.  Try it if you can, but skip the purchase until you have; there are many more worthy bottles out there to spend your hard earned money on.  Keep you stick on the ice, and the ice out of your glass.

                                                          Roscoe (ScotchGuyTO)