Now that does not sound very promising, does it? Bear with me for a few short paragraphs and the randomness will be justified. The Cabinet met last night for the first time in over three months. The extended break being due to the absence of the Secretary (and host), who was abroad for most of that time. In the scramble to organize a meeting amongst the tumult of the return home the Secretary hit upon the notion that members could simply draw the names of the whiskies we have in plentiful supply from a hat. Voila. "Random Night."
There was a brief and entirely pointless discussion regarding how to determine who would draw these names but soon we had our four names: Bunnahabhain Darach Ur, Cardhu 12, Cul na Creagan and Ardbeg Supernova.
Each of these has been tasted before and discussed, so I will not tread over old ground again, although the Bunnahabhain previously suffered the indignity of being rendered into a mint julep:
From August 2014, "The Whiskies of Summertime":
But not just any mint julep, a Bunnahabhain Darach Ur mint julep. Before we go on I want you to say Darach Ur out loud a few times. Decide whether you are a Klingon or an Orc. Darach Ur!!! Feels good doesn't it? Unfortunately it does not mean "death to the weak" or anything inspiring like that, but rather it is simply Gaelic for "new oak". Oh. This expression of Bunnahabhain was matured in fresh new American oak casks, not in the more usual used bourbon or sherry casks.
Consequently a word or two about it as a stand alone whisky is in order. Although it is an Islay it does not have the characteristic nose, in fact not much of a nose at all other perhaps a hint of fresh grass. At 46% it comes onto the palate hot and fiery, behind which is a very pleasant depth of malt and obvious vanilla from the new oak. There is excellent mouth feel. This was all roundly approved of and enjoyed, although we did make note of the notorious "first dram" effect wherein the first whisky of the meeting is so welcome that it is usually praised higher.
On to the Cardhu. You are encouraged to search the blog for its previous tasting (the search box is at the top left) and then return to this post to read that our opinion has not changed. In fact, we are remarkably consistent because nobody remembered what we thought before so we approached it with optimism. Ill-founded optimism. "Wimpy" was one member's description.
Ah well. The Cul na Creagan pulled us the other way. Here we were highly inconsistent, but happily so. If you look back at our Inner Hebrides meeting in June 2012 you will see that we liked the bottle, but found the whisky unimpressive. Well, last night we were impressed. Perhaps our palates had been blown out by poor sequencing before or perhaps two years of oxidation was actually beneficial or perhaps the stories of Ebola testing in the field in Guinea and in the airport in Zimbabwe put us in such good spirits that we were more open to finding flavours previously hidden to us. Nothing like a good Ebola yarn. Regardless, a complexity presented itself that we had not noticed before. We will have to put it through a proper re-tasting and re-scoring in the future.
But we still hated the Ardbeg Supernova. Hate is a strong word. The Supernova is a strong whisky. Use the search box if you want to know more.
As an antidote we drew another name and treated ourselves to a half pour of Clynelish 14. Yum.
And thus another highly enjoyable Cabinet Meeting was concluded. Many thanks to Cory for the smoked salmon, Jason for the cheese and Ivan for the photos.
Slainte!
There was a brief and entirely pointless discussion regarding how to determine who would draw these names but soon we had our four names: Bunnahabhain Darach Ur, Cardhu 12, Cul na Creagan and Ardbeg Supernova.
Each of these has been tasted before and discussed, so I will not tread over old ground again, although the Bunnahabhain previously suffered the indignity of being rendered into a mint julep:
From August 2014, "The Whiskies of Summertime":But not just any mint julep, a Bunnahabhain Darach Ur mint julep. Before we go on I want you to say Darach Ur out loud a few times. Decide whether you are a Klingon or an Orc. Darach Ur!!! Feels good doesn't it? Unfortunately it does not mean "death to the weak" or anything inspiring like that, but rather it is simply Gaelic for "new oak". Oh. This expression of Bunnahabhain was matured in fresh new American oak casks, not in the more usual used bourbon or sherry casks.
Consequently a word or two about it as a stand alone whisky is in order. Although it is an Islay it does not have the characteristic nose, in fact not much of a nose at all other perhaps a hint of fresh grass. At 46% it comes onto the palate hot and fiery, behind which is a very pleasant depth of malt and obvious vanilla from the new oak. There is excellent mouth feel. This was all roundly approved of and enjoyed, although we did make note of the notorious "first dram" effect wherein the first whisky of the meeting is so welcome that it is usually praised higher.
On to the Cardhu. You are encouraged to search the blog for its previous tasting (the search box is at the top left) and then return to this post to read that our opinion has not changed. In fact, we are remarkably consistent because nobody remembered what we thought before so we approached it with optimism. Ill-founded optimism. "Wimpy" was one member's description.
Ah well. The Cul na Creagan pulled us the other way. Here we were highly inconsistent, but happily so. If you look back at our Inner Hebrides meeting in June 2012 you will see that we liked the bottle, but found the whisky unimpressive. Well, last night we were impressed. Perhaps our palates had been blown out by poor sequencing before or perhaps two years of oxidation was actually beneficial or perhaps the stories of Ebola testing in the field in Guinea and in the airport in Zimbabwe put us in such good spirits that we were more open to finding flavours previously hidden to us. Nothing like a good Ebola yarn. Regardless, a complexity presented itself that we had not noticed before. We will have to put it through a proper re-tasting and re-scoring in the future.
But we still hated the Ardbeg Supernova. Hate is a strong word. The Supernova is a strong whisky. Use the search box if you want to know more.
As an antidote we drew another name and treated ourselves to a half pour of Clynelish 14. Yum.
And thus another highly enjoyable Cabinet Meeting was concluded. Many thanks to Cory for the smoked salmon, Jason for the cheese and Ivan for the photos.
Slainte!
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