There aren't many houses in the UK where you'd happily pick
up a small sample bottle of amber coloured liquid, pop the top off and give it
a good hearty sniff before pouring into a glass and swigging away; certainly
not at my elderly relatives houses, that's for use.
Thankfully, unlike my sister-in-law, I'm not a doctor in the
Churchill Hospital's renal unit who has chosen to bring work home with them,
but a professional in an altogether more gentle industry, that of spirits, and
more specifically whisk(e)y.
Keeping track of samples is a pretty straight forward
business: usually when one arrives it is marked up clearly on the bottle with
all the relevant information (distillery name, working title, age statement or
otherwise, ABV and any other interesting information, if they can fit it on)
and once lined up neatly on my writing desk, they form an orderly queue waiting
to be reviewed, like British OAP's waiting in line at the Post Office to
collect their weekly pension.
However, the orderly queue can go from Home Counties Post
Office to the first four rows of a Take That concert with ease, when disrupted
by samples we've drawn from our bottles or taken out of friend's stashes as often
these can go unlabeled, with my brain thinking “I’ll remember what’s in there”
and then totally forgetting.
Fail.
And so it is that over time, my writing desk has filled up
with small sample bottles, the contents of which I have no idea. Trying them
turns in to some sort of whisky Russian roulette...
These, however are my new best friend:
Thankfully, at the moment my samples are hideously well
organised. I seem to have learnt my lesson, due to being recently shocked by
one truly awful sample (more to come later in the week) that I’d taken from a
friend after being shocked and appalled by something they’d made me try. So bad
was it, that I thought I just had to write about it. But utterly violet was how
I felt when I opened the blank sample last week and I vowed never again to
leave a bottle unlabelled on my desk.
There are just two unlabelled samples currently on my desk
and I know what is in each of the bottles: one is a Murray McDavid Port Ellen,
the other is a 20 Year Old Lagavulin (independent bottling from 'The Syndicate') but I don’t
know which bottle contains which whisk. However, when I took the samples from
the original bottles, I deliberately used two differently shaped sample bottles
and had the presence of mind to take a photo of each of the wee vessels next to
its ‘daddy’.
So I've decided to try them blind, writing notes on them
without any more information that I already have, before revealing to myself
which whisky is which... now, let's give them both a go:
Sample One:
Nose: A wonderfully rich peat smoke rises from the glass,
backed with some sherry tones, raisins and brown sugar. The slightly earthy,
almost farmyard tones give away that this must be the Lagavulin, but there is
always a chance it isn't!
Palate: Classic rich Islay on the palate with some tropical
fruits, almost Bowmore like, which give way to dark chocolate, some sweet rum
tones all underpinned with a big hit of mossy peat smoke and warehouse floor.
Finish: Pure oak and strawberry jam. Very, very nice but
maybe slightly too much wood?
Overall: A really wonderful dram of great complexity but
incredible smoothness.
Sample Two:
Nose: Ahhhhh... chamois leather, grapefruit and peat. Surely a
Port Ellen?! In fact, I'd put my house on it. But with this there is some
additional sweetness, like a clear apple juice or very sweet tea over the top. Interesting.
Palate: Hummm... Slightly salty, this doesn't give too much
on the palate other than smoked white grape juice and some slight tones of
white bread and almost a hay-like note (the smell of hay in a flavour!).
Strange.
Finish: Sweet spices and white grape juice again. Slightly
bitter.
Overall: clearly a Port Ellen on the nose, but a very odd
beast on the palate. The delicate tones which hideaway underneath Port Ellen
smoke seem to have been rounded off and sweetened down; not what I'd want from
this distillery, but it certainly would appeal to some palates. Almost like a
Port Ellen b-side remix
And so, which is which? Well, it was all a little too
obvious on the nose and it turns out that the big, rich tones of Sample One is
indeed:
Lagavulin - 'The Syndicate's Bottling' - 20 Years Old - Distilled
03.09.1990 / Bottled 22.09.10 - Cask No. 4395 - 48.1% abv
and Sample Two revealed all, with the Port Ellen being
finished in Chateau D'Yquem Casks...
Port Ellen - Murray McDavid Mission Series - Distilled 1982
/ Bottled 2009 - Chateau D'Yquem Cask Finish - 1175 bottles - 48.6% abv
Well, if this was whisky speed dating, I'd certainly be
looking for the 'phone number of Sample One. Sample Two I'll leave to find love
elsewhere.
The moral of this story? Always carry a Sharpie with you... if nothing else, so you can do this sort of thing:
