The Single Cask Nation Ben Nevis 8 Year 2009 (1st Fill Sherry Butt)

Tasting notes:
The nose here is funky, and assertively so. It’s a 4 foot, 10 inch-tall spunky hot yoga instructor, wiping the beads of sweat off of her spandex with a chamois. It’s a funk band with three drummers. We imagine that the frogs used to make poison darts must smell like this (when they’re alive, of course). But there’s another note here, and a harder one to nail down: it’s like when all ofyour friends have their fingers on the sides of their noses, and you just realized it’s your turn to clean the grill. In other words, the nose is a demanding functionary, the guy at the velvet rope entrance with a checklist in his hand.

But then, miraculously, the mouth comes along, and you find you’re on the list! It’s a ¡Holy Guacamole! moment, to be sure. In that way, the mouth is a complete departure from the nose. It’s like being on a first date with a schizophrenic. It’s jarring at first, but the good news is that this charm offensive came second, and there are only two gears. The flavors are intense: star fruit and papaya together concentrated down into a planet destroying Death Pluot (“That’s no moon!”)–and tens of millions of tastebuds cried out all at once, but in joy. OK, the mouth is not just big and intense, it’s crazy big and intense. It’s the T-Rex in Land of the Lost. It’s Mr. Snuffleupagus finally showing up in front of other people when Big Bird mentions him.

The finish is more of the mouth, but with a long, slow, glorious fade out. Huge spice explodes on the tongue and resonates for a long time. It’s the opposite of anaesthesia: it makes you feel more and wakes you up to the experience as it does. I imagine there were hard candies in that cut crystal bowl at my grandmother’s house that were like this, but I just couldn’t understand them for what they were at the time.

Rating:
On the scale of wildly divergent parts existing within one body–
The Single Cask Nation Ben Nevis 8 Year 2009 (1st Fill Sherry Butt) is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde–The idea is not as crazy as it might at first seem, given it can easily be understood as a metaphor for human nature. Except here, the wild, crazy side is no way, shape, or form bad. It’s worth undergoing the change to experience it.

 

 

                                                                                         –Stephen

 

 

–Our thanks to Joshua Hatton and Single Cask Nation for the sample!

 

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