The Glenmorangie Allta

Tasting notes:
I’m so thrilled to see the venerable Glenmorangie and Dr. Bill Lumsden branching out into the manga and anime markets.  When I saw that they were marking the tenth anniversary Private Edition with the release of Alita: Battle Angel, it was something of a dream come true.  What’s that, Stephen?  Yes, I’ve got my reading glasses right here.  You want me to put them on?  Oh…  It says Allta?  That’s wild!  

The nose is lacquery and syrupy.  We get antique marzipan, and then hardened circus peanuts with red pistachio dye on them.  I am picturing toffee candy canes swirled into fig butter.   Bill remembers his middle school project on raisin-eating grasshoppers whose feet are stuck in amber resin.  For a moment I detect heather hybridized with aluminum–he’s not called Doctor Bill Lumsden for nothing!  Honey, butterscotch, and tardigrade musk round out the already round nose.

The mouth reminds me of one of one of my favorite Glenmorangie expressions, the Signet.  But I think it’s a Signet with a more youthful aspect.  Dare I call it a cygnet?  There’s vibrancy and vim and a rakish disregard for authority.  All of the lacquer promises on the nose are paid out tenfold.  I get wax seals sunning themselves on a wax pier in San Waxcisco.  Stephen struggles to explain the green note that does not denote youth.  Verdant.  Yes, that’s the word.  There is a sense of incipience with every sip.

The finish enables me to revisit the late-afternoon shadows cast by the wonderful mouthfeel which, at its center, is comprised of tangy, nearly-fermented mangos.  But there are some fiery dimensions, like little emery board lozenges licked by kittens.  Some bitterness nips in at the heels, too, but quickly there is more sweetness enrobing the tongue and palate.  If it is a shorter finish than I remember with the Signet, it still resides at the hot-savory-sweet triad at which stands a monument to the ginger scone, the kind with the crystalized chunks of ginger on top. 

   

Rating:
On the scale of interesting facts about the filmAlita: Battle Angel—

The Glenmorangie Allta is the fact that the film was based on the manga story entitled “Gunnm”–That is also remarkably like the sound I made when I first sipped this impressive addition to the Private Edition lineup.  Yunnm!

   

   

                                                   —John

   

   

–Our thanks to Glenmorangie for the sample!