Whisky : Glendullan 12 Year SMWS 84.35 “The Panel’s Pun Polestar”

Country/Region : Scotland/Speyside

ABV : 56.8%

Cask : Ex-Bourbon (10Y), FF PX Hogshead (2Y)

Age : 12 Year (Distilled 19 March 2008)

Nose : Dried fruit, spice, and leather.  Sticky rich dried fruits, honey, toffee, dates, and stewed plums.  A bit of youthful heat dissipated to reveal cinnamon, nutmeg, and all manner of holiday spiced figs.  Hints of lemon-lime citrus gave way to leather and cigar box.

Palate : Full-bodied with loads of oily viscosity and notes of tobacco, brown sugar, and dried fruit.  Woody tannins offered ] a drying astringency as dates, leather, chocolate, and syrupy stone fruits covered the palate.  Metallic notes of alkaline copper top batteries toward the end.

Finish : Lingering chocolate powder and dryness.

Score : 6

Mental Image : Battery-Powered Fruit Roller

Notes :  Also known as “Orange-y-tang” outside of the US.  Intensely sherried on the nose, those light citrus notes helped keep this from being a one-note sherry bomb.  Despite the thick viscous mouthfeel, this was incredibly easy to drink.  While the nose was a bit hot the palate was tamer and a few drops of water really opened things up beautifully.  

The copper-top battery notes might have tricked me into thinking this was a Springbank if I were to have tasted this blind.  I do not think I have come across those notes from many other distilleries and I was surprised how much they popped on this.  They were pleasant and added some nice complexity to keep this interesting on the palate, just as those citrus notes did on the nose.  I have no idea if those notes are common to Glendullan, I have only tried it once before and did not take any notes.  I mostly remember it being light and sweet.

Overall, a sherry bomb from a distillery that rarely appears— mostly as the US version of the Singleton and then occasional Diageo Special Releases.  While this did not have the depth of an older sherry bomb, it did have some lovely contrasting flavor notes that really kept things interesting.