Girvan: 25 Year Old (Scottish Single Grain Whisky: 25 Years: 42.6% ABV)
Visual: Pale gold.
Viscosity: Very fast thick streaks.
Nose: Smooth and light. Candy sugar. Sugared orange jelly sweets. Tiramisu and light walnuts. Fruit sugars. Water adds oak notes.
Body: Very smooth. Custard. Orange. Treacle notes underneath. Jelly fruit sweets. Water brings out a more tangerine kind of orange.
Finish: Bright orange. Passion fruit. Caramel. “That whisky character” air. Water adds oak notes, toasted teacakes and coffee cake.
Conclusion: Smooth as heck comes to mind – all The Girvan expressions I have tried so far have had a certain smoothness, even the proof strength with enough water, but this has it to such a degree that water seems superfluous for the most part.
This is still a fruity expression, but concentrates more on the bright orange fruit notes, with a very tangerine sweetness. The backing to that is similar to the 4 Apps, but smoother delivered. It has a similar sweetness, more custard here with coffee cake and tiramisu underlying it. Similar but more nuanced. Very dessert like in all the imagery it brings.
The coffee cream flavor rises over time, showing more of that base creamy nature of the whisky, thickening and filling your mouth.
Oddly, at the tasting event I found this slightly a let down, fun but one note. Having had the chance to take more time with it at home, well, it definitely benefits from being treated as a more luxuriously slow drink. And at its price point one would really hope so!
I still prefer another in the Girvan range (With one more tasting to go, what could that be…?) but I have grown to respect this one. Smooth up front, bright initially into a creamy dessert character. Still needs just a touch more complexity to be an all time great, but very good.
Background: Ok, as always with these, full disclosure. Girvan paid for me to head up, visit their distillery and do a tasting, then sent me these whiskies to do notes on. I will, as always, try not to let this affect my notes. This, the 25 year they consider their signature expression of the brand – Due to the age this came from their older machinery, rather than the vacuum distilled 4 and 5 apps, and was aged in American Oak barrels. This was drunk while copying my entire music collection to my new MP3 player. It took a while. I always hate it when an old mp3 player dies on me, I get attached to the silly things.