Port Charlotte 6 Year, Private Cask Blood Tub #20
Whisky : Port Charlotte 6 Year, Private Cask Blood Tub #20
Country/Region : Scotland/Islay
ABV : 58.5%
Cask : Sherry Blood Tub
Age : 6 Year (Distilled 25 April 2002, Bottled 6 June 2008)
Nose : 7-11 at 2 AM: coffee, Lays BBQ potatoes chips, purple drink, faint antiseptic cleaning solution, and a dried out teriyaki spam musubi. Notes of barbecue spice with brown sugar, grape jelly, strawberry jelly candies, and sweet teriyaki with nori and salty meat— this dram was laden with memories of my misspent 20s.
Palate : Thick and viscous with tobacco, teriyaki, and fruit. Awash with notes of cigar boxes, grape skins, wet tobacco, and roasted pork with plum sauce— a sweet, herbal, fruity, salty melange. The old teriyaki spam musubi was back with meat, salt, nori, and sweet as the dram carried on with a notable minerality and oily-salty mouthfeel. Toward the end was iso peanuts and kaki mochi— rice crackers flavored with nori, cuttlefish, and shrimp. A few drops of water brought out more brown sugar.
Finish : Lingering notes of salty barbecue chips.
Score : 8
Mental Image : 2 AM Post-Club Munchies
Notes : It was remarkable how different this was from its sister cask. They shared some similar notes, but the intensity of those notes and the ways they combined were totally different. Perhaps the most significant divergence was just how tannic the dram felt. While 19 was inundated with an oaky tannic astringency, this was considerably milder.
I have absolutely no doubt that the nostalgia I experienced with this dram— the specific memories of going to 7-11 after a night out to grab some Gatorade and a spam musubi or two— influenced my score. Having some personal connection with a dram, whether the memories it surfaces or the memories made when you first try it, elevates the experience. I thought this just encapsulated a specific late-night memory that, for many in Hawaii at least, is also a shared experience— grabbing a late-night musubi at 7-11.
