Discover Whisky

On Thursday Mike and I met up at the Scotch Malt Whisky Society’s rooms in Edinburgh’s Queen St for their second tasting for whisky bloggers. This matched up with their quarterly release of new bottlings - always a major event for their members. Our fellow bloggers were a mix of familiar faces and new, and soon showed themselves as having a range of different palates.

Olaf was again our host and regaled us with more stories of his early membership (he was the first overseas member before moving to the UK and later Edinburgh) and the beginnings of the Society. The selection of whiskies for our delectation was his choice and promised to give us a fresh perspective on some different distilleries’ production. The one thing you soon learn at these events is that the casks that the Society gets bear little relation to the standard shop-bought output from these distilleries.

So, on to the whiskies themselves.

Whisky 1

Cask 37.45 - 22 years old, 56.5%  (230  bottles available)

Colour

Light honey

Nose

Leather, marzipan.

Taste

Initial taste

Front of the tongue. Spicy, intense. The society’s panel mentioned Victory V losenges and I can agree with that. There are also flavours of spicy duck as you’d get in a Chinese restaurant and hints of the dark sauce that’s usually served with crispy duck.

Later taste

No change in character, just a rounding of the flavours

Finish

Long, warming.

After a little water

Sweeter, more light honey, later hints of lemonade.

Conclusion

Very nice. Very interesting, I could definitely enjoy an evening with this. Most of my fellow panelists agreed. Way better than anything I’d tasted from this distillery

Whisky 1a

This was a  surprise bonus from Olaf - same distillery as the first but this time it had spent 15 years in Sherry casks.

Strength was a surprising 60.4% though there was little sense of overpowering spirit. A lovely rich nose that immediately suggested festive celebrations. Tastes of slightly singed Xmas cake; very rich, smoother than the first version despite the additional strength but even more spicy. A touch of Rum coming through.

Rather surprisingly water really draws the strength out of it,  makes it sweeter. Later on it’s still rich.

You probably couldn’t drink much of this at its full strength but you’d enjoy what you did. Definitely a malt for special occasions. Diluted it’s a different dram, still interesting but not with the same character.

Whisky 2

Cask 26.63 - 12 years old, 58.7% (580 bottles)

Colour

Pale

Nose

Nail polish immediately - everyone seemed to agree on that. Hints of Rosemary, something I couldn’t immediately identify but which was probably the Chartreuse mentioned in the society notes, plastic.

Taste

Spicy toffee! Yeah, strange concept isn’t it? The initially puzzling background taste resolved itself into oak wood chips.

Finish

Oily, oaky.

After a little water

Water smooths it off, more pleasant but less character.

Conclusion

This is an odd one. There are aspects that are interesting but it doesn’t really hang together properly for me. There’s too much oiliness and the nose is confusing - it doesn’t seem to match the taste.

(Tasting notes will continue in the next post)