Tasting notes:
In the wild, the nose on this dram is a defense mechanism to protect the delicious mouth: it’s new lures in the bottom of a tackle box being courted by palmetto bugs. And those bugs are still covered with wood shavings a little boy imagined would be like shag carpet for them. And with those shavings that little boy lined a pickle jar he hoped would be like their own VW Magic Bus. Yes, there’s mank here, dear reader, but there’s also cinnamon, tiny cornichons in a mild brine, and an adult creamsicle fashioned from Cointreau and presented in a finely aged cardboard container.
The mouth is, in a word, beautiful. In another word, perfection. It’s so redeeming it could handle half of Donald Trump’s need for redemption. There’s some wood there, but it’s also perfect, so having to break it down and pinpoint it quickly becomes tedious. It’s perfect, okay? I imagine that the whisky must be getting cranky hearing us discuss its perfection to this degree.
The finish is an extension of the mouth, which is to say that it’s glorious: imagine the best drum sticks in the world made into the crucifix spine of a kite soaring into the heights on a wave of love. Is that hyperbolic, you ask? I don’t think so, but let’s not get too much further into that issue lest we make it cranky. And despite the Bill Bixby line I’m referencing here, you’d probably still like it when it’s cranky.
Rating:
On the scale of great things gone too soon–
The Dimensions Tormore 24 Year 1990 from Duncan Taylor is, yes, Bill Bixby and probably this whisky–Only 59 when he passed, he’d been popular as a straight man in what this author saw as his own manky nose (My Favorite Martian), but then brought a surprising warmth and sophistication to the television series, The Incredible Hulk, which brought him the greatest fame and lasting admiration from this (then) young comic book nerd.
–Stephen