The Single Cask Nation Bruichladdich 9 Year Old (1st Fill Bourbon Hogshead)

This picture was taken in a car for very good reasons, none of which had anything to do with drinking it in a car. Please don’t drink and drive.

Tasting notes: 
At the beginning, the nose on this bad boy is straight out of the bayou. Smell the mangroves? Smell the overripe bananas Thibault hid under the seat of that airboat? How ’bout that Pine-Sol Aristide cleaned the grain alcohol off the naugahyde with? Or the peach liqueur he spilled on it right after that? Oooh, that’s some creamy smelling stuff!

Fortunately, we took a sip and then nosed again. The nose is improved dramatically by the adjustments provided by the mouth and finish. The smell clarifies to ripe bamboo in a Phuket open market, flamed to create maximum smoke for the eel platters being prepared there. Reminds me of a limerick I once knew: There once was bamboo fire in Phuket, the firefighters don’t care and say…

At any rate, the mouth is hot and bright and beautiful. There are notes of really good tobacco, stored in Harrison Ford’s dingo boots. [Bill: He has dogs that wear boots? Cool!] Then the finish comes on: there’s a full, quiet click and then BOOM. It’s a full-on Michael Bay finish. Then the residue of that explosion rings in your throat. I imagine it’s like the ring in the ears of a Civil War artilleryman assigned to a Whistling Dick. That is to say, it’s a truly impactful and lingering finish.

Add water, and it’s more cloying, more beautiful all the way down. Like turtles all the way down, only less infinite and less regressive. There’s also some choice mank here, like when Marisa Tomei borrows your Wellies to go on a 50 mile bike ride. In August. There’s also fully bloomed gardenias–or maybe it’s just a vine-covered, wild flowered rain forest floor, overwrought with vegetal and floral exuberance. The mouth is even creamier than before: it coats your lips immediately and doesn’t let go. The finish does not diminish, so you must replenish. Said Johnny Cochran at the lesser known trial of Jim McEwan. It was a version of The Trial of Socrates, but it finishes with all involved drinking up–and reveling in what they drank. Oh, and it was water of life and not a death-inducing poison. There is no need for anyone to martyr himself for truth here; there’s oikeiôsis for all.
 
Rating:

 
  
 
 
–Our thanks to Single Cask Nation for the sample!