The Convalmore 32 Year 2017 Limited Edition

50 ml ghost pipe mini

Tasting notes:
The nose presents you with a muted mustiness and fresh flowers, like stepping out of a plane from the 1980s and immediately getting lei’ed. Actually, the problem with the preceding sentence is that it gives the impression of superficiality and transience that’s not really there. In fact, the nose is rich and substantial. It’s Pete Postlethwaite’s florist shop in The Town. It’s a Mediterranean remake of When Harry Met Sally called When Narcissus met Jasmine–only with more spice than that title suggests.

The mouth is light, but broad, which represents an entirely new point on the mouthfeel spectrum. And man, is it spicy! There’s betel nut and mace and about sixteen other things I can’t readily tease apart. This is the sequel to The Poisonwood Bible.  Or better: it’s The Spicewood Book of Mormon.  Now here comes the fruit in a wild free association: Bananas. Goji berries. Halle Berri. Berri Berri. Peri-Peri. Timothy Leary’s private stash of LSD. Creamy.  Shakuhachi. David Carradine. Florentines without chocolate. Wow, what a ride!

The finish is like a long, slow sunset: it’s as long and slow as the last breaths of this long closed distillery. The buildings still linger, empty and ghost-like, on the edge of William Grant Company’s properties in Dufftown, but this spirit still flows into the world like the nectar of long-forgotten royalty. Hyperbole? Perhaps, but my goodness, if it is hyperbole, it’s not far from the truth.
 
 
Rating:
On the scale of ghostly flowers–
The Convalmore 32 Year 2017 Limited Edition is Monotropa uniflora–Also known as the “ghost pipe” and the “Indian pipe,” it is a strikingly singular flower: it contains no chlorophyll and thus can grow in very dark environments, like among the ghostly remains of a silent distillery.
 
 
 

                                                                  –Stephen
 
 
 

–Our thanks to Diageo for the sample!
 
 

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published.


*