The Macallan: 12 Year (Scottish Speyside Single Malt Whisky: 12 Year: 40% ABV)
Visual: Burnished gold.
Viscosity: Quite fast thick streaks.
Nose: Vinous red grapes. Spotted dick. Oak and pencil shavings. Alcohol burn at the high end. Slight sour grapes. Cherry packed digestives to cherry strudel.
Body: White grapes. Smooth texture, though some alcohol weight. Orange liquore. Toffee. Sharp lime notes. Oak. Vanilla. Water smoothes to chocolate and caramel over raisins. Menthol late on.
Finish: Malt drinks. Oak. Light chocolate liquore. Waters makes chocolate and raisins and adds aniseed.
Conclusion: One last dance old…friend…I think. Yeah, probably an old friend, if not an overly close one. Yes, I am anthropomorphising a whisky. Then I drink it. This may say strange things about my mind.
It is not an old favorite. It is more that distinguished gentleman that, behind his flair, turns out to be a tad shallow, if still enjoyable company.
It is smooth, especially with a teaspoon of water. The flavours are a simple set of wine grapes, toffee and raisins with water. Pretty much similar but with more alcohol weight and orange liquore instead of raisins without water. There are other notes but the ones above are the biggies.
No real surprises for a Macallan, but class all the way and that does buy it a lot of grace. It just seeps in so easily, with water bringing on a menthol freshness to see the whisky out. It is like the epitome of a distinguished chatting whisky, You don’t want to spend ages examining it, but you do want to be aware of the quality while you are otherwise distracted.
So a friend, but not a favorite. I still very much enjoyed this last chance to revisit and review, but I look forwards to reviewing the ..well, still kind of new…range with expectation not sadness.
If you get the chance to say goodbye it is nice, but don’t drop large amounts on it I would say.
Background: In case of confusion this is the sherry oak version, but normally I would guess it goes without saying. Anyway, this little mini from Independent Spirit is one of a rapidly dying breed. Mcallan have switched to labelling their whisky by color. Macallan Gold for example. A practice that right gets on my tits, because, you see, the bottle is clear. I can already see the color. I would like to know something else about it. Anyway, so these year marked bottlings are going the way of the dodo. So I figured I’d best review the 12 year while it was still in my price range. I was going to listen to some music while reviewing this but ITunes updated and then fucked itself. Yes, I shouldn’t use ITunes I know. I have no idea why I still do. Anyway, on the upside I found out that holding crtl and shift as you launch ITunes puts it in a safe mode which let me launch and debug. So I thought I would share.
