The Tomintoul 27

Tasting notes: 
        Oily and woody like a pine-needle littered, cedar shake-shingle roof, home to a dead ferret, baking in noon-day summer sun. A little girl’s plaintive licorice-like voice corkscrews up from the house, augmenting the tragedy, “Tony? Tony? Where are you? Time for your tea party, fudge brownies, and Turkey-Venison-Lamb pasty! Hurry, Mr. Pink is waiting for you.”
The mouthfeel is as marvellously chewy as heirloom corn stoneground into the non-ironically remarkable Rosebank Gold Bohiket Grits, and there’s more wood in it than in George Washington’s dentures combined with the log cabin Abraham Lincoln grew up in. Heck, there’s more wood (and peat) (and industrial grade diamonds) in it than in the 80 million trees knocked over by the Tunguska meteorite in 1908.
And 1908 is relatively close to 1905, Einstein’s annus mirabilis. Similarly, 2009 is relatively close to 1982, which must go down in our annals as Tomintoul’s anise mirabilis. It’s so miraculous that it almost allows this taster to overlook the taste of tarry gravel embedded in a skateboard’s urethane wheels.
Who needs smoke or strong peat in your expression when instead it’s been distilled to attain the incomparable ideal of a grimey handful of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans (Tar, Licorice, Bogey/Booger, Mouldering Old Cedar Closet)? Surprisingly, the finish has a hint of cherry, much like a zephyr wafting from Kyoto to a sampan floating offshore in Lake Biwa during late March.
   
  

                                                                                     –Bill