mcgees.org

New iteration of the unpeated living bottle:

• 5 mL Glendronach 15 sherry cask
• 10 mL Aberlour a’bunadh, euro bottling (heavily sherried)
• 15 mL Glenturret ‘80/’00 (Blackadder)
• 20 mL Glen Moray 12 Chenin Blanc finish
• 25 mL Glen Moray 16
• 30 mL Glen Garioch 8
• 35 mL Aberlour 100
• 40 mL Aberlour 10, bourbon casked, Duncan Taylor bottling for Trader Joe’s
• 45 mL Balvenie Doublewood (aged in bourbon and finished in sherry)
• 50 mL Macallan 10, bourbon casked, for Trader Joe’s

Nose: Oiled leather, sherry, honey, sweet, soft, white rum

Palate: Leather, strong honey, very sweet, almost raisiny (but in a good way), lychee

Finish:  Leather, perfume, oak.  Enticingly sweet.

Notes:  Really a charmer.  92/100

This is the best it’s been so far.

Irène Jacob turned 40 on Saturday.  Famke Janssen is 40, too.  Lena Olin is 51.  All the hottest actresses in Hollywood are over 40 now.

No big deal?  You must not mind getting old as much as I do.  Our fantasy women get older as we get older.  Bummer.

So maybe it’s time for a new generation.  Christina Hendricks, A.J. Cook, Morena Baccarin, Michelle Williams (thinking of the Oscars here), and Keira Knightley are all ‘78ers or later.  Long may they live, and never get older than I.

Add contributions as you will to the comments page.

This will cover two incarnations of the bottle.  A couple weeks ago, I tried the next iteration of the living bottle.

1. 6 mL Glendronach 15 sherry cask
2. 13 mL Aberlour a’bunadh, euro bottling (heavily sherried)
3. 19 mL Glenturret ‘80/’00 (Blackadder)
4. 25 mL Glen Moray 12 Chenin Blanc finish
5. 31 mL Glen Moray 16
6. 38 mL Glen Garioch 8
7. 44 mL Aberlour 100
8. 50 mL Aberlour 10, bourbon casked, Duncan Taylor bottling for Trader Joe’s

It’s not very good.

Nose: Light sherry, cherry sours.  Spirity, fruity.

Palate: Simple.  Tastes spread out and vatted.

Finish: Undistinguished.  Slight fruit.  Grainy.

Finish: I hope this improves on subsequent iterations, as it’s not very good right now.

Score: 80/100

Tonight I’m tasting the next iteration, after adding Balvenie Doublewood a couple of weeks ago:

1. 6 mL Glendronach 15 sherry cask
2. 11 mL Aberlour a’bunadh, euro bottling (heavily sherried)
3. 17 mL Glenturret ‘80/’00 (Blackadder)
4. 22 mL Glen Moray 12 Chenin Blanc finish
5. 28 mL Glen Moray 16
6. 33 mL Glen Garioch 8
7. 39 mL Aberlour 100
8. 44 mL Aberlour 10, bourbon casked, Duncan Taylor bottling for Trader Joe’s
9. 50 mL Balvenie Doublewood (aged in bourbon and finished in sherry)

I’m writing the notes as I taste.

Nose:  Much improved.  Oiled leather, sherry.  A bit spirity.  Cherries.

Palate:  Maraschino cherry, book leather

Finish:  Still getting a lot of cherry and leather.  Vintage port.

Notes:  Really very nice.  I’m glad I didn’t give up on the bottle.  I wouldn’t have pegged it for a vatted malt.  I might have even guessed it as port casked Speysider.  Now the question is, how much of this change is the composition, and how much is variance in my tasting apparatus from week to week?  Could adding 20% Balvenie Doublewood really swing the profile this far?  I think it’s possible.  It certainly is responsible for emphasizing the leather.  In any case, I would buy a bottle of this.

Score: 91/100

I’m adding another whisky.  I’ll bring another installment in a week or so.

Welcome, visitor from St. Helena (.sh)!  They visited lots of web posts nearly simultaneously, including the original WAC post.  I don’t know how they found me, but they were using IE 6.0.

154 down, 110 to go.

What CDs should I buy that BMG Music Service offers?