The Single Cask Nation Glen Moray 11 Year Old

Tasting notes: 
Remember that part where the hobbits escape the elven king inside of wine casks?  Well, imagine the casks held a really good whisky.  That was my first thought on nosing this.  My second thought was that it’s a walnut wood cask, first filled with fruitcake.  Maybe, says my third thought, they sealed the cracks with a beeswax polish for shaven heads, to ensure buoyancy.

Quickly enough those notes of wood fall away and the nose mellows into a milder and gentler invitation.  Almond butter lacquering lemons.  Dragon wings spread out to dry in the sun in the manner of a cormorant.  A tagine greased with lard and cooking down okra into a heavenly gumbo.  But then more fruit: a bit of banana, a bit of pineapple, but something more exotic than both dominates.

The mouth is a spectacular journey on a mango ship filled with a trove of mango-pit scrimshaw.  In the cargo hold my mind turns to create an alphabetical list of my favorite desserts.  I stop at derby pie.  Oh, so rich and sweet and wonderful.

Finish is like diamonds: forever.  Champagne poured into a crystal glass with a cinnamon ridge.  Creamy butter bubbling on an iron pan.  Then a turn to slight bitterness, the kind that adds the whisper of sorrow to pleasure’s howl and yawp.  Flinty, mineralic.  Perhaps it’s the iron filings from a broken etch-a-sketch that had just had the Eiffel Tower perfectly rendered on it, seconds before it was handed to Koko the gorilla.

 
Rating:

 

 

  


–Our thanks to Single Cask Nation for the sample!