Excellent Thursday

In the apt words of our Chair, Al, Good Friday was this year preceded by Excellent Thursday as The Cabinet met last night to consider the maritime whiskies from the Scottish mainland. This is a diverse group, but all of them show some influence from the adjacent sea and hold out the hope of identifying that elusive salt note.

We began off-theme though with the selection of our guest, Cory, who was invited to go through our stocks and pick what most caught his interest. This was the Glenkinchie 12 year old. It was a good place to start as this is a lighter scotch, dry and malty and delicately flavoured and thus not too punishing to the palate in advance of the evening's tastings. While the Glenkinchie was being sipped we passed around the generous swag that the fine people at the Springbank distillery had sent us and we discussed a modicum of business, including a project to put together the history of The Cabinet in the form of a story. It was agreed that in so doing we would view actual historical fact as an unnecessary encumbrance.

The first up of our maritimes was the classic Old Pulteney 21 year old from the northernmost distillery on mainland Scotland in the far northeastern town of Wick. I write "classic" because this has again and again proven to be The Cabinet's all-round favorite from the current stocks. Unfortunately that was almost the last of it as well. Given its most excellent balance and complexity, strong consideration will be given to purchasing it again in the future. It could in fact nicely fit with an Orkney night as Wick is only about 40 km, as the gannet flies, from the Orkneys and could thus present an interesting counter-point.

Next in line was the Springbank 10, from Campbelltown on the Mull of Kintyre, essentially the opposite corner of Scotland from Wick. This whisky was an excellent surprise. It is fabulously complex from the nose through to the finish. And what a finish. It lingered and lingered on the palate (in a good way I should hasten to add). The Springbank is also very aggressive with strong alcohol character, right up the edge of being considered rough, but fortunately not quite there. Salt character is definitely in evidence here.

Finally, we finished our maritime trio with the Oban 14 year old. The town of Oban is also on the west coast, but about 100 km north of Campbelltown, well on the way to Fort William and Ben Nevis. Some of us had remembered it being peatier and more iodine infused, so we saved it for last, but in fact the Oban ended up being much more gentle than recalled (perhaps this was just in comparison to the foregoing Springbank). It is a beautifully rounded whisky with a very pleasant mouth-feel and a rapidly fading finish that makes it easy to drink quickly (for good or ill...). Another winner in a night of excellent scotch whisky.

As it was Excellent Thursday and as the Springbank was such an Excellent Surprise we broke protocol and poured another half dram of the Springbank to finish the meeting off. We engaged in some discussion of possible topics for the next meeting, coming to no certain conclusion, but circling more and more around the idea of looking at the Johnny Walker blends.

Slainte!