N: Heavy on dark chocolate, coffee grounds, and roasted nuts. Nutmeg-like spice, resinous wood, plum sauce. P: This is thick chewy stuff, holy s***! Quite dry, almost uniquely so, with something medicinal a lurking underneath the massively sherried palate. F: Lingers on high percentage cacao chocolate, mint leaves, and cafe mocha.
After my first tasting of this, I though it reminded me a bit of Bruichladdich Blacker Still. Thanks to starting a sample library a while back, I was able to do a side by side. The Glengoyne is much darker than the Blacker Still, kinds make it look like Browner Still. And the nose and palate on the Glengoyne are more powerful. They do share many of the same notes, the Glengoyne is just x2 on everything and a bit more complex. Love it!!
Wow this nose is amazing. It’s very rich and layered. There’s a nice balance of dark fruits (black cherries, blue berries) mixed with dark chocolate, smoke and black tea. Somewhere in there I got a nice little zing of raspberries. The palate is much the same with dates, tobacco and the char from burnt toast or burnt sugar. Theres a great long finish that is massive on dark preserved fruits (prunes and black raisins) with mints and black peppers. Stunning!
n: Very rich. Dark chocolate covered cherries and burnt caramel.
p: Damn. There's a lot there. Maybe too much. This is like the sludge at the bottom of a barrel, alhtough I mean that in a good way... sort of. There's damp decaying wood on top of damp decaying wood. I think you'd have to dig under a fallen log in Oregon to get this. Ok, there is some fruit. Black cherries. Neither bitter nor sweet. The finish sticks in a syrupy sort of way. I wouldn't call it complex (the finish), but it's got more than one game going on.
Recommended if you like very dark wooded whiskies.
N: Nice and rich nose - Marmite, old wood (not even slightly bitter), nutty. Slihgtly overripe blueberries, tobacco.
P: Thick! Spicy and warm - a little pepper and faint cinnamon, nice and nutty with some strong sherry on it. A momentary waft of bubblegum. Dark chocolate, boozy rich rum raisin cake, and another dollop of marmite. Slight smokiness but more of a burned nature than peat. A bit of orange peel in the brightness but it's pretty faint.
F: Warm - nutty again with the sherry, lots of dark fruits - plums are all over it. Again that bubblegum top note zips by for a fleeting moment. Some black tea character to the tannins that have shown up. Smoky, marmite is there. Nice gently numbing heat. Considerable wood at the end but it's got a chocolate coat to it.
Thick, massive, syrupy but not overdone. Great sherry influence that isn't one dimensional. Just very rich. I could drink this all day.
Nose: Just massive sherry, figs, prunes (Farmers Market style plump, rich dried prunes, not those wrinkly, chemically treated monstrosities from the supermarket), dark chocolate (like really dark chocolate). Really nicely sherried nose.
Palate: Wow, the nose says sherry bomb, but it doesn't tip you off to the fact that this is just an amazingly complex whisky. It starts with Concord grape juice, but that gives way to those chocolate notes and even some nutty notes. You even get a few bourbon notes in there. Combine that with a syrupy mouthfeel and it's pretty wonderful stuff.
The finish has a lot of chocolate and the reamins of the sherry which are represented in some raisin notes.
A single drop of water intensifies the nose and brings out even more sweet fruit notes on the palate.
My problem with a lot of the sherry bombs is that they are pretty one-note, but the best of them are like this one, where there is a clearly a heavy sherry presence but it's allowing other flavors to emerge as well. This is the perfect after dinner malt.
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