The Single Cask Nation Imperial 24 Year Old 1996 Bourbon Barrel (54.6%)

Tasting notes:
The nose is as if a Rosebank married a Dallas Dhu and the two were put inside a parfait. It immediately transports Bill to a psychedelic scene from Yellow Submarine that was cut from the film because during it, the trip Paul was experiencing suddenly presaged the boulder scene from the opening of Raiders of the Lost Ark–only the golden idol was made of candy, and it was a giant orange that was rolling after him. John and I just got BASE jumping into a creamsicle cloud, not really caring when or where one comes out. The perfume on the fruit notes here are the type that would make a teenager float above the ground while walking home, smitten.

The mouth may be the sweetest mouth we’ve ever experienced. We found distinct notes of Sweet Tarts®, but wonderful ones: imagine you’re 12 again and have been deprived of candy for 6 weeks, and then you get your hands on some. Sweet and Tart, but not fully Sweet Tart, the mouth is also somewhere between viscous and creamy, as though it were emulsified by angel farts. This must be what it’s like suckling on a unicorn’s uniteet: neither oily nor buttery, it’s like direct brain stimulation/simulation from the Experience Machine. “Delicious” doesn’t begin to cover it.

Spice billows forth on the finish. Minty spice, like an afterdinner sweetness.  Minty without menthol. It doesn’t feel like it’s going down, it’s spreading its butterfly wings. It’s Wings of Desire where the angels want to be mortal again–just to get their hands on this heavenly nectar.

   

Rating:
On the scale of memorable things about Bruno Ganz–

The Single Cask Nation Imperial 24 Year Old 1996 Bourbon Barrel 54.6% is the warmth and sweetness of his smile in The Party (2017)–There was a melancholic sweetness in his eyes as a guardian angel, but the full ripening of life experience brings something even sweeter, and there’s nothing melancholy in this dram.

   

   

                                                                                      —Stephen

   

   

–Our thanks to Jess Lomas and Single Cask Nation for the sample!