The Arran Machrie Moor 2011 LE (30 ml last dram of winter bottle)

Tasting notes:
     I should begin by saying I remember liking an earlier version of this whisky a lot more, back when I tried it at an Arran tasting.  That said, for this dram: on the nose we get lemons fermenting in a halved durian used as a bowl, or perhaps jalapeño poppers.  OK, OK, that may be too harsh: I don’t think we’ve ever gone so far as to liken a whisky to something so bad as jalapeño poppers.  What’s that?  Not jalapeño poppers, but just “poppers”? What are just “poppers”?  Ohh… I see that.  Yes, there’s a distinct note of amyl nitrate citrus limon.  Don’t strike any matches.  And thank God it was jalapeno poppers, because that would have been truly horrible.  But then comes the peat notes, but this is a special peat, made from compressed heather or rose petals.  These notes are accented by distinct hints of white dog.  Is there such a thing as a foetal age statement?  No matter.  There’s fruit here, too, but alongside something industrial: imagine a fruit salad that includes tires (where all of the ingredients were chopped into pieces that were roughly the same size, of course).  It smells like a super funky gin, or perhaps Krusty the Clown after a bender (“I heartily endorse this event or product!”).  We can’t go that far, but we can praise it with faint damns. The mouth is much the same as the mouth, but here the industrial chemical and fruity develop into hints of citronella, tiki torch, and maybe even black fly repellent (Welcome to tent-free sleeping!).  Somewhere before the finish, I could’ve sworn I detected a pair of clown shoes left by the side of the road in Tijuana.  There’s pepperiness on the finish, but it’s far from piquant: it’s an Anaheim pepper.  OK, it’s better than that.  It’s a perfectly ripe anaheim pepper.  Three feet long.  Without losing any flavor.  (We liked the finish the best.)

Our thanks to Sam Filmus and ImpEx for the sample!