Whisky : Mortlach 11 Year SMWS 76.26 “Exceptional orange”

Country/Region : Scotland/Speyside

ABV : 59.5%

Cask : Sherry Butt

Age : 11 Year (Distilled March 1989, Bottled Oct. 2000)

Nose : Opened with a burst of citrus, brown sugar, and stewed fruit.  Sample binge through the candy store with sweet creamy and fruit notes of butterscotch, caramel candies, milk chocolates, yogurt raisins, and strawberry licorice.  Musty sherry-funk in the background with a mild nuttiness.  Water brought out more orange with orange creamsicle candies and POG (passion, orange, guava) cupcakes came immediately to mind.

Palate :  Medium to thick body with an oily mouthful, bit of youthful heat, and notes of fruit, citrus, and brown sugar.  Began with notes of strawberry licorice, citrus, sweet orange marmalade sauce (or orange chicken sauce another taster opined).  The dram had a lovely minerality to it, almost the impression of tin— like tinned peaches— along with a subtle dryness that built at the end with molasses and brown sugar.  A few drops of water brought out more orange with bitter oranges and blood orange rind.

Finish :  Lingering brown sugar, fruit skins, and dryness.

Score : 7

Mental Image : Blood Orange Creamsicle Gummies

Notes : This Mortlach was delicious and I loved the notes of strawberry licorice and bitter orange that just popped on the palate.  This was just fine sipping at cask strength, but a few drops of water took this straight to the Fête de l’Orange (Orange Festival) at Punaauia on Tahiti— a delicious festival to celebrate the annual bounty of wild oranges.  At that point this was absolutely dripping with bittersweet notes of blood orange or even the slightly floral Tahitian oranges.  This was fine at cask strength, but water really took it to a new level of enjoyment.

Overall, this was a bit of a unicorn for me considering it was an older bottle from SMWS.  It was a lot of fun to pour it at a local tasting and compare against a few much older Mortlachs.  While it did not have the complexity of its much older brethren, it had an excellent clarity of flavor that won it more than a few fans, including myself.

Compared to the sherried Mortlach I reviewed the previous day, the cask influence on this was far milder and more restrained which led to a lot more complexity and juicy fruit on the palate.