Today's post will be relatively brief. The Cabinet met on the evening of the 10th to have a look deep in the cob-webbed recesses of its eponymous whisky cabinet. Our thought was that there might be bottles hidden in its depth that had not yet been officially tasted by the group. In addition we had purchased the Glenfiddich "Cask of Dreams" which while neither old nor hidden also fell into the category of "not yet been tasted".
The first bottle to emerge from a dark corner of the cabinet stocks was the Balvenie Double-Wood 12 year old; the two woods in question being whisky and sherry. This was met with general approval and garnered a score 6.3. Next to emerge was the Glenmorangie Quinta Ruban, coincidentally also a specialty finish, this time in port pipes. It was also roundly enjoyed and as chance would have it also scored at 6.3. We're a tough crowd.
The Glenfiddich Cask of Dreams comes in an attractive (shiny!) cylinder and carries with it a story that only a marketing department could love. I'm not sure we would have bought it had we seen this first:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZF2wbDzrKs
Catchy. Pretty girls. Some nice shots of Winnipeg. But not even the slightest hint about the whisky itself... Fortunately The Cabinet exists to step into the void and describe the actual drink. In a word: "harsh". Under the harshness it does have the trademark Glenfiddich caramel and butterscotch on the palate, but the nose is almost absent and the high alcohol (48.8%) makes for a heavy burn. Even tempered with a bit of water it remains... harsh. No age statement is given, but we presume it is young. We may be tough crowd, but evidently we are also a sentimental and patriotic lot (scotch barrels rolled through Canada!), so we awarded it a 5.1.
For comparison it seemed sensible to pull out a "real" Glenfiddich, so we chose the 21 year old. Now that is a fine scotch whisky. Being a Speyside you don't expect to be smacked around the palate with heavy and radical flavours, but you do expect a well balanced dram with a solid caramely malt base. The 21 year old (or at least this 21 year old) was finished in a Caribbean rum cask, thus rounding out an unintentional specialty finish theme. I'm not sure what the rum cask brought to it, but we did all notice marvelous chocolate and pear tones. Fine indeed and granted the evening's highest mark at 6.9.
I may have been pouring a bit parsimoniously as everyone still looked thirsty at the end of the program, so we dragged out another Glenfiddich, the Caoran (peat ember), and killed off the dregs of that. No review will be given nor a score assigned as we feared that excessive oxidation had done harm to the few ounces that had been idling in the bottom of that bottle for the last few years. We remembered a much more interesting whisky. This then prompted the desire to do a proper inventory and mark (by eyeball estimation) what percentage remains in each bottle so that we can minimize the amount of whisky permitted to go bad. We will also investigate nitrogen purge systems.
Another lovely evening overall in which the Battle of Queenston Heights (200 years ago) was toasted and many other important matters were discussed over Edam cheese (thank you Jason) and homemade moose chips (thank you Cory). I'll leave the origin of the latter to your fertile imagination, but I will say that they were delicious.
Slainte!
.JPG)
The first bottle to emerge from a dark corner of the cabinet stocks was the Balvenie Double-Wood 12 year old; the two woods in question being whisky and sherry. This was met with general approval and garnered a score 6.3. Next to emerge was the Glenmorangie Quinta Ruban, coincidentally also a specialty finish, this time in port pipes. It was also roundly enjoyed and as chance would have it also scored at 6.3. We're a tough crowd.
The Glenfiddich Cask of Dreams comes in an attractive (shiny!) cylinder and carries with it a story that only a marketing department could love. I'm not sure we would have bought it had we seen this first:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZF2wbDzrKs
Catchy. Pretty girls. Some nice shots of Winnipeg. But not even the slightest hint about the whisky itself... Fortunately The Cabinet exists to step into the void and describe the actual drink. In a word: "harsh". Under the harshness it does have the trademark Glenfiddich caramel and butterscotch on the palate, but the nose is almost absent and the high alcohol (48.8%) makes for a heavy burn. Even tempered with a bit of water it remains... harsh. No age statement is given, but we presume it is young. We may be tough crowd, but evidently we are also a sentimental and patriotic lot (scotch barrels rolled through Canada!), so we awarded it a 5.1.
For comparison it seemed sensible to pull out a "real" Glenfiddich, so we chose the 21 year old. Now that is a fine scotch whisky. Being a Speyside you don't expect to be smacked around the palate with heavy and radical flavours, but you do expect a well balanced dram with a solid caramely malt base. The 21 year old (or at least this 21 year old) was finished in a Caribbean rum cask, thus rounding out an unintentional specialty finish theme. I'm not sure what the rum cask brought to it, but we did all notice marvelous chocolate and pear tones. Fine indeed and granted the evening's highest mark at 6.9.I may have been pouring a bit parsimoniously as everyone still looked thirsty at the end of the program, so we dragged out another Glenfiddich, the Caoran (peat ember), and killed off the dregs of that. No review will be given nor a score assigned as we feared that excessive oxidation had done harm to the few ounces that had been idling in the bottom of that bottle for the last few years. We remembered a much more interesting whisky. This then prompted the desire to do a proper inventory and mark (by eyeball estimation) what percentage remains in each bottle so that we can minimize the amount of whisky permitted to go bad. We will also investigate nitrogen purge systems.
Another lovely evening overall in which the Battle of Queenston Heights (200 years ago) was toasted and many other important matters were discussed over Edam cheese (thank you Jason) and homemade moose chips (thank you Cory). I'll leave the origin of the latter to your fertile imagination, but I will say that they were delicious.
Slainte!
.JPG)
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