Cory decided on the Yamazaki 18 year old, which we had tasted several years ago, but had more or less forgotten about. Personally, I don't recall being especially excited about it when we had it before, so it was a mild and pleasant shock to discover that it is in fact an excellent whisky. Although there is some fire up front, it is a remarkably smooth whisky with the oak and fruit dominating. There was some dispute about the quality and length of the finish, but overall the assembled company was impressed. Yamazaki is a Suntory product, distilled since in 1923 in the Vale of Yamazaki near Kyoto. It is said that the quality of the water and type of climate make this area ideal for whisky manufacture.
Trevor was next and picked the Springbank 10 year old, explaining that although it was our highest rated whisky, he couldn't recall that much about it. There was unfortunately only about a half ounce per member left in the bottle, but that was still enough to remind us why we had rated it so highly before. It is what in the cricket world would be referred to as an "all rounder" (and thereby I have discharged the sum total of my knowledge of cricket). The Springbank has a complex nose, a flavour that mingles floral components with a touch of salt and seaside, and then delivers a long, satisfying finish. All this for a modest price as well ($78.86 in Manitoba). Does it really deserve to be rated as our "best" whisky, tied with the Old Pult 21? That's impossible to answer as a bottle by bottle ranking involves too much hair-splitting and too much faith in the precision of the numerical scores. Really one should just look at the categories and ignore the numbers. The Springbank 10 is "excellent", as are a half dozen or so whiskies in our collection. The Springbank is incidentally our only whisky from the Campbelltown region, which was once considered the "whisky capital of the world" with 28 distilleries, of which only three remain.
As you can see from the photo above, the Talisker 10 and the Glenmorangie Quinta Ruban are still to come. Jason selected the Talisker as a solid can't-go-wrong cold winter's night dram. Nothing really needs to be said about it as a reader of this blog will undoubtedly be familiar with it. Unless one has an aversion to peat, this is on every scotch lover's desert island list (depending on how long the list is permitted to be). It is in fact the whisky that my friend John and I chose to fill our flasks with when we trekked over the moors and fells along the length of Hadrian's Wall.
Those of you able to count to three will wonder where the Glenmorangie came from. You might recall however that Trevor's selection only provided a small taste, so given that Christmas is almost upon us we decided to grant Trevor a second selection as well. He chose well, as the Glenmorangie Quinta Ruban is a club favorite and one that says "Christmas" more than any other I can think of it, with its strong undertone of candied orange peel. This is a whisky that illustrates what a specialty cask finish can do in a world increasingly filled with lesser novelty finishes that seem concocted more by the marketing departments than by the master distillers.
And thus concluded another successful evening at The Cabinet. These fine malts (and not a misfire among them) were enhanced by Grant's wonderful cured Arctic Char with accompaniments such as marinated spruce tips sourced from the nearby boreal forest.
Slainte!
(Thank you to Ivan for the majority of the photographs).
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