The Night Of The Living Dregs

Our honourable and jovial members met last night for a session of early spring cleaning. As the last post explained The Cabinet has recently purchased new stock to launch us into a Year of Excellence. This new stock has however created some space issues within the physical cabinet itself where approximately 50 bottles now compete for room. However, several of these bottles only contained what can best be described as dregs. The term "dregs" has however perhaps unfair pejorative connotations for what are in fact very decent whiskies that just happen to have sat in there a bit longer and been poured from more freely.

Regardless, on offer then were the Glenkinchie 12 year old, Balvenie Doublewood 12 year old, Macallan 15 year old, Glenrothes Rubor Reserve and the Kilchoman 3 year old. This was an interesting exercise because the first three all somehow ended up tasting remarkably similar. The nose on the Glenkinchie was more pleasantly redolent of toffee, the Balvenie was more robust (rough?) and sharp on the palate and the Macallan was the fullest and chewiest, but generally these three malts seemed like close cousins tonight. Perhaps there was something in the air or the mood, as this is always all so very subjective, but that was the consensus.

We scored the Glenkinchie 5.6, the Balvenie 5.0 and the Macallan 5.8.

More on these scores in a moment...

Next we addressed the Glenrothes Rubor Reserve. "Rubor" apparently just refers to oak and is therefore not quite as exotic as it is made out to sound. Unfortunately our bottle had a curiously loose cork, so we fretted a little about oxidation and evaporation. We were right to fret. The oxidation I'm not so sure about, but with respect to evaporation we all agreed that the fabled angels had taken far more than their share (bad angels). The Glenrothes tasted flat and dead. A bit of alcohol disappears and all you are left with is caramel. We scored it 4.2.

Finally then we came to the Kilchoman. The Kilchoman is special. It is the first bottling from the first new distillery in Scotland in a hundred years. Moreover, Al has a share in a cask at Kilchoman. This all sounds very promising and exciting, however.... However it is only three years old and it is the first bottling of a new distillery. The nose is promising enough - a smack around the olfactories with the expected peat and smoke - but the taste snuffs out that promise. Yes, there is peat, but there is also sugar. Lots of sugar. And the sugariness lingers on the palate long after the peat dissipates. It was very odd; a bit like sucking on candied peat. The Cabinet wishes Kilchoman success and more luck with the next bottling. Score: 4.0.

I promised to touch on the scores again. The astute reader may note that we had scored three of these malts before, the Balvenie, the Macallan and the Glenrothes, and in each case we had scored them higher before, sometimes two points higher. What's going on here? Three things I believe. First of all, the scores though different were still usually in the same range or category. Ultimately whiskies fall into three categories in our minds: poor, fine/acceptable and excellent. Secondly, I believe we are maturing in our scoring and are more willing to place whiskies on the entire score spectrum from 1 to 10, rather than always clustering around 7. It is important to recognize that scores in the 5 range are fine, indicating perfectly enjoyable scotches, just not above average in any sense. Finally, chance plays a big role and tonight was a smaller gathering, so more vulnerable to an off kilter score or two. We will average the new scores with the old for the permanent record.

A marvelous evening once again!

Slainte!