The The Macallan 12 Double Cask

Tasting notes:
The Macallan 12 Double Cask noses like a new sponge (no scrubber side) used to sop up a spilt Oloroso and mop up burnt brownie crust crumbs from a late Friday night “hello to the weekend!” townhouse blowout. The sponge (blue, not yellow) was then impaled with a vintage iron rotisserie spit and delicately smoked over twigs of manzanita and tins of smoked eels. There’s also a large cedar plank, smoldering, on which rack of gnu was grilled: Big grills don’t lie. Stephen also got a salamander burp; I’ll defer to his expertise in these matters.

On the mouth, John had a nerdgasm: Heidi Klum bending over R2D2 saying, “Help me, Obi John. You’re my only hope.” I’ll defer to his expertise in these matters. There’s that lovely Macallan golden note, ringing velvety, buttery, butterscotchy, and scotchy. We got oatmeal pretzels and amber waves of barley, as well as a vintage eelskin tongue glove originally used as an aid in ice climbing in the Patagonias. The high note keeps ringing the charcoal+ brass+sherry chimes, interminably…which leads me to wonder: Is there a breaking point for deliciousness? Or does ongoing deliciousness stay delicious? I brace myself for experimentation: The crisp linen monogrammed lab coat is donned. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar corneal safety goggles are pulled down. The Malt Cave lights are dimmed. I drink again. And again. And again. Appearing soon in the prestigious journal Nature: Delicious Deliciousness Never Cloys; It Stays Delicious—Just Check Your Tastebuds, Yum, Yum.

The finish is big and even more velvety. Wine-y, robust, and converging at infinity like two parallel lines or railroad tracks to the Andromeda galaxy. It’s an exaltation of the mouth, with a full choir of tenors, countertenors, altos, Balto  soporanos, the Sopranos, and rich baritones and thundering bassi. The melody becomes a theme and the theme reconfigures the mouth while nodding graciously to the nose. It’s dark, but not ominous. It’s assertive, but not brassy. It’s elegant, but not vitiated. I’m in a mahogany Iron Maiden isolation tank that fortunately hasn’t been spiked. Rebound and redound, double and redouble, boil, boil, and double trouble.

 
 
Rating:
On the scale of gambling games that fool the foolish into believing that the game relies on luck, but is clear to the cognoscenti and masters that rather it turns crucially on skill–
The Macallan 12 Double Cask is backgammon–I double the point, then double you. Your move, Macallan, your move.
 
 
 
                                                                 –Bill