Gordon and Macphail: Connoisseurs Choice: Auchroisk 1996 (Scottish Highland Single Malt Whisky: 18 Year: 46% ABV)
Visual: Pale grain gold.
Viscosity: Thin slow puckering.
Nose: Heather. Vanilla toffee. Gooseberry. Quite thick. With water becomes lighter with apple notes.
Body: Vanilla custard. Mandarin orange. Gooseberry. White grapes. Thick feel. Apples. Toffee. Slight muskiness. Sweeter with water, bringing out caramel and honey.
Finish: Gooseberry. Soft vanilla. Dry oak. Cake sponge. Apples. Water enhances the green fruit and adds honey. Also yellow raspberries, greenery and sulfur touch.
Conclusion: This is a very green fruit whisky, and half manages to deceive you into thinking it is a gentle one. Ok, deceive is not quite the right word, brings negative connotations with it, let me explain.
This is smooth, no alcohol burn evident and only a gentle warming feel to show the alcohol presence. The flavours are smooth, green fruit and toffee, so you can see how you would think that everything is pushing towards a soft gentle whisky.
However, it feels thick, with musky notes and that mouthfeel, similar to what you get from the hairs on freshly picked raspberries. I can’t quite work out if it works overall, if it benefits or weakens the whisky, but it is definitely distinctive.
It seems to result in the flavours feeling more melded and less individually sharp, but with water the gooseberry still pokes through, so it doesn’t hide the flavours. I would say over time a clearer spirit would probably have made it easier to drink, but less unique.
Overall a pleasant, and slightly odd take on the green fruit whisky, but one that feels slightly muted by its weight. Not bad and a bit different.
Background: Bottled 2014. Grabbed from The Whisky Exchange as, well, I was buying a standard size bottle so thought I may as well grab a bunch of minis from distilleries I had not tried at the same time. By the way, Canada beer reviews will return, but I thought I would put up a whisky review so whisky fans are not left out. Drunk while listening to Lada Laika: Dream Machine, because I enjoy listening to the fun chiptune style stuff online.
