Dalwhinnie: Winter’s Gold (Scottish Highland Single Malt Whisky: 43% ABV)
Visual: Thick syrupy gold.
Viscosity: Hard to say in the frozen glass.
Nose: Grain fields. Shredded wheat. White chocolate. Warm gives more floral and vanilla.
Body: White chocolate. Alcohol present. Nutty. oak. Warm is smoother. Toffee and praline. Dried apricot and dates.
Finish: Nutty. Peanuts. Malt chocolate. Hazelnuts. General whisky air. Warm brings out praline.
Conclusion: Ok, as explained in the background I didn’t full on freeze this, because well, I didn’t want to risk wasting the single measure I had for trying. I didn’t even manage to get a cool photo of the frosted up glass as it cleared too quickly. However it did do the job and chilled the spirit down a bit for experimentation.
Chilled down, well it pretty much closed out any note but nuts, oak, alcohol and white chocolate. Not that impressive and not much to say about it. So I’m going to sod off for about half an hour and let it warm up. See you in a while.
Welcome back. Advantage of writing these up afterwards, the gap is nigh seamless. So, there we go. Definitely less noticeable alcohol when warm, gentle sweetness coming out and a praline air. Much better. Maybe going half way and only chilling was the problem and full freeing would have helped, I doubt it as chilling killed the aroma, I’m guessing this is mainly a gimmick. Any which way I did not enjoy my chilling experience.
Anyway, it is superior warm, not that complex but definitely within the Dalwhinnie milieu. unfortunately water seems to make it slightly rough again. However here it is trade off, it does open up the flavours a but giving a tad more nuttiness and some lightly spiced dried fruit. It just feels a tad more alcohol touched as well.
Seriously, testing this warm, chilled, neat and with water. Ye are getting a lot out of me for 15 ml of whisky, no? Thankfully I’m a professional. Well, an enthusiastic amateur with delusions of grandeur. Bit of a whistle stop tour, but I do my best.
I have to admit, ignoring the gimmick, it doesn’t seem to give that much over standard Dalwhinnie – which was always a tad simple for me. This has more nuttiness and a pleasant white chocolate to go with the floral and sweet character – the white chocolate is probably the key, it helps sell the winter imagery. Overall however it seems a fairly standard whisky with a weak gimmick.
Background: Last few times you will be seeing this “Ok, bias warning first: This is a part of the Masters Of Malt Whisky Calendar given to The Bath Whisky and Rum Club, part of Independent Spirit, who invited me to assist with the notes in return for uploading them to alcohol and aphorisms. Sounded a very fair deal to me. Also, due to this we each only had half of the 3cl bottle so thoughts are based on a smaller exploration than usual. On the other hand I could not say no to the chance to try so many new whiskies. Many thanks!”. Now, this whisky, made with spirit distilled from October to March, is recommended to be drunk frozen. I have 15ml 6to make my judgment on. I’m not fecking about with that. Though they do say it improves cold, so I decided to meet it half way, put a glass in the freezer and serve in that to chill it down. That way it would be easy to transfer to a new glass and warm it up if I decided not to keep with it cold. So, not Frozen – just Let it go.
