The Glen Garioch 19 Year 1995 from The Exclusive Malts

Tasting notes:
The nose on this dram is a wonderful mash-up of diverse, even divergent aromas: oily, liquified amber a fly is trying desperately to climb out of; white lemon icing on a bachelor’s cake, now that they do that kind of thing; mulled pomegranate used to attract the attention of an infant; star fruit harvested by a star fish–or maybe Spongebob; an axe used to split fresh wood, then to cut cave-aged cheese; and pulling open a corn husk and finding a honeydew melon. What kind of minds come up with stuff like this, you ask? Sorry, but we’re going to have to direct that question to the top brass at Glen Garioch.

The mouth is an amazing breakfast with Bizarre Foods TV host Andrew Zimmern. It begins with butter and syrup pooled into a square of a buckwheat waffle. Then comes a side of edible tar, with orange and citrus. How is it edible, you ask? It’s actually LaBrea Tarfu®, a devilishly complex and savory soy tar substitute. What will they think of next?!?  After that, it’s a bird’s egg soup with some sherry funk in there, but it’s only the drums and the bass.  Finally, you’re served an aged banana essence custard garnished with katsuobushi flakes and shaved petrified banana, just for good measure.

The finish is tart. It’s sloe-playing a hand of poker against a whole table of blackthorn drupes. I’ve said this before, but I don’t know what that last sentence means, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t crazy evocative of what we tasted here. Or try this descriptor: it’s like finishing a pitcher of the Sour Patch Kids version of Tang. Makes me want to be an astronaut (not again–never wanted to be one as a kid; but drinking this not too long after I saw The Martian changes my whole worldview).
 
 
Rating:

 
 
 
                                                                              –Stephen
 
 
 
–Our thanks to ImpEx for the sample!