The Glenrothes 1985-2005
100 ml baby grenade
Tasting notes:
This is, in many ways, a typical twenty year-old: fresh-faced, reeking with potential, very much in the here and now, unable to formulate–much less follow through on–future plans, and still toting that freshman fifteen. But what distinguishes this twenty year-old is the fact that its big nose is complex and, as it turns out, nicer than its round, full-bodied mouth–and certainly more compelling than its nearly non-existent finish. Oddly enough, one could have said the same of me at twenty, thanks in no small part to a chance meeting of my face and a pair of handlebars. But unlike me at twenty, this malt is smooth and rather dry, and its imperfections are not so obvious as to render it hopelessly ‘awkward’ or ‘unfortunate’. And instead of being marked by the taste of foam bar wrap, chrome, and blood draining from the sinuses, this twenty year-old offers a subtle profile of flavors, ranging from earthy and mature to old and smelly: polished patent leather shoes stored for years in a tattered cardboard box, a rubber ball detached from its paddle and left to dry out on an oak window sill, a hobo camp on the edge of a cranberry bog–or maybe a craisin bog.
–Stephen
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