I got this sample from whisky buddy DSA, who sent it to me a couple of months ago. On holiday I finally got around to it and I had a quiet afternoon in the sun, with one kid taking a nap and the other in the swimming pool with mum. Good, quiet times.
I only had the 35.111 info, and I happen to know distillery 35 is Glen Moray. Apart from that I had no idea what I was drinking. What I do know is that SMWS has had a relatively large number of releases from Glen Moray over the last five years, and especially the older ones have often been awesome.
Image from Whiskybase
Sniff:
Slightly rubbery with lots of warm dried fruit. Brioche buns, more mixed dried fruits, Christmas pudding. Sweet candied fruits like peaches, plums, apricots. It tastes like a heavy sherried whisky. Lots of plums. With water the nose becomes somewhat lighter and the fruits more fresh.
Sip:
The palate is fairly strong, but no overpowering alcohol burn or so. Mostly sweet with bitter oak. Plums and their seeds, cherry seeds (that slightly arsenic flavor), sherry and dried fruit. Clove too. With water the palate is still sharp, but becomes a bit thin.
Swallow:
The finish is dry with lots of sherry. Again, quite bitter with fruit seeds and stones. More sherry and quite rich and heavy.
The comment I wrote below my notes was ‘Not the best, but also not the worst’. What’s more strange is that this turns out to be a refill ex-Chardonnay hogshead. I don’t know what to think of this. It might be that it has been finished in that, but I don’t know.
It tastes a lot like sherry, and it smells like sherry, and it looks like it was matured in a sherry cask. Boy was I wrong.
But, back to comments: It’s a good dram, but there’s some strange stuff going on with the rubbery nose. The fact that it’s very strong without water, but thins too much with water. I did enjoy it though, even though you’ll never recognize this as Glen Moray. The distillery character is too weak to survive the onslaught brought on by the oak.
Interesting stuff, this! Now I just have to figure out why DSA was attracted to a chalet girl’s dram.
Glen Moray 2001-2014, 12yo, 59.3%, SMWS, 35.111, A Chalet girl’s dram.
