I’m still a little weary after trying to find accurate information about the Ealanta. I’m skeptical that the label on that one was completely truthful. Were the casks really heavily charred as the label said, or were they heavily toasted as their press release indicated… or was this perhaps, a mix of both of them, toasted casks comprising the dominant share?

With that fresh in my mind, reading the Finealta’s label makes me wonder if the malt is really all lightly-peated, as it indicates, or if maybe they didn’t have a few moderately peated casks they loosened up with a few casks of the Original 10 and some Oloroso stock from the 18. It certainly smells plausible.

Knowing it’s there makes it very obvious, but if the label and ad copy hadn’t indicated this was lightly peated whisky it might have had me contemplating for a few moments whether the phenolic wafts were from the wood or the malt. It’s very light with the peat. It’s classically sweet, too, like most Glenmorangie’s are, almost too sweet. It’s like candied bacon; I’m not quite sure it should exist. I mean, bacon is good, and sugar is good, but together? I don’t know… then again, brown sugar and smokey bacon work just fine in a barbecue sauce, so maybe I’m over-thinking it.

Nose: At moments it has a subtle meatiness and tang, like a grilled hamburger with ketchup. A little papery, but still fruity. I can’t tell if it’s cherry or raspberry in this one… maybe both, but very reserved. Sweetly woody and mildly smokey, like a brand new camping trunk back from it’s first trip to summer camp. Mild iodine with house cat, lavender and memories of blowing into Nintendo cartridges. A tiny bit of melted vanilla ice cream over candied ginger and oatmeal cookies. The apricot is almost cloying in this context.

Palate: Oatmeal cookie concentrate and dark brown sugar rush in with smoked tomatoes en papillote. Savory copper middle notes. Hearts of palm, pinto beans and sweetened lobster bisque while it’s on the tongue. Very sweet for a peated whisky. Lime and a touch of tequila in the finish. Fried bread crumbs waft up from my chest after the sipping has been over for a minute. This would pair well with good Mexican food; maybe some Milanesa empanizada?

I had a hard time choosing the rating on this one. It has a little of that tequila youth to it, but other than that, it smells and tastes great. Peaty whisky can stand a little youth and still be delicious, too. On the other hand, it’s a little unsettling for me to explore a peaty whisky that’s so damn sweet even though peated whisky pairs well with sweet foods. I guess I’m just not used to tasting so much of it in the spirit. In the end, I’d say for it’s unusual constitution, limited status and overall lack of fatal flaws, it wouldn’t be my first choice, but I could definitely recommend it.

Thanks to Gretha Smart and David Blackmore over at Glenmorangie for the bottle.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that there may have been a mix up here on Glenmorangie’s end, maybe even some deception. Despite sending them to three different people on several occasions, I never received answers to any of my questions so I didn’t bother sending the second wave of them for confirmation. With that in mind, I may be wrong… though there is a clear source of information quoting Bill Lumsden himself, posted on the Glenmorangie webpage that seems to confirm what I’m about to say despite what the bottle says in tiny print on the label.

Lots of well known bloggers accuse this whisky of being aged like a Bourbon and then talk about how Bourbon-like it is. The power of suggestion is strong, but my first few glasses of this left me perplexed. I’ve had a handful of American style malts before, and this was not nearly as bold as I expected. I understand that US mash bills have more room for variation but, in my mind, the casks they used to mature this (allegedly heavily-charred virgin casks coopered from the same forests that many familiar Bourbon labels use) should have made them much more similar to their American counterparts. It does have faint echoes of American whisky; slight grassy notes, cooling finish and it’s a little woodier than most single malts; but it’s still mysteriously different. I think it all boils down to one very subtle distinction that I think got misconstrued (or purposefully obfuscated) and sent down to the labeling department to be aggregated over and over again by bloggers who know better than to bother brand ambassadors with stupid questions.

While Glenmorangie’s webcopy doesn’t say the casks are charred or not, their press release implies that they aren’t using heavily charred virgin oak here; Lumsden comments that the Ealanta came from heavily toasted virgin oak, which won’t make this recognizable to someone expecting an American style Glenmorangie. Toasted and charred are two different levels of burning. Toasting is what sherry makers do to their casks and implies that many wood-sugar caramels are created. The wood will be dark brown and charcoal has not really formed. It makes for a sweeter spirit with more spice and nuttiness, but it can take longer to mature spirit in this type of wood. Charred casks are what Bourbon, Rye and American Malt whisky use. The word implies that they were burned enough to produce charcoal, which gives less spice but more vanilla and smoke. The charcoal acts as a filter, mellows some extra immaturity and darkens the spirit dramatically. Both types of casks are toasted while shaping them, but the charred casks get an extra blast of fire once formed.

Any diligent blogger would have caught this by sight, before even tasting the decidedly not-American-style palate. This is almost two decades old and lighter than most 2 year old Bourbons out there. That was one of the first things I noticed. Sure the climate is different in Scotland, but so much so that 19 years wouldn’t rival the color two years in Kentucky could procure? It’s not a desert; it does snow in Kentucky.

The palate and color considered, it makes me wonder if the Ealanta couldn’t be second-fill or refill ex-Bourbon casks, merely spiked with a few casks of virgin oak. Maybe they were even heavily charred casks, but only a tiny percent of the whole vatting. Those who can say for sure are understandably sticking to their guns.

Nose: The first wave to hit me was a blast of sour apricots and wood glue. Short ribs and balloon rubber. Eventually the whisky opens up to sweet-cream ice cream before surrendering to a horse stable filled with malted barley, obvious plums and unripe bananas. Grassy cinnamon, nutty ginger powder, light cumin and medicated menthol show up and clarify the woods pedigree. Nutty Buddy bars make occasional appearances. It took me a few minutes to figure it out what it was but if I pick up out of the glass a little and sniff, I definitely get a little butane at the back of my nose. 

Palate: Peppery, flat caramel, plums, with a faint tinge of cola and uncanny tarragon. Mild wafts of cumin and nutmeg. Very farmy, slightly drying, and slightly woody for moments. Coppery semi-sweet chocolate in the finish which is cooling on the tongue. Slightly green. It has obvious similarities with a first fill ex-Bourbon cask, but really, I think the Bourbon aspects of this one have been over stated; for me, it shares more in common with the American craft whisky scene, like some of it was finished in a small cask.

The Ealanta is like a tangy, peppery, grassy version of the 10 year Original. It’s a predictably awesome whisky.

Thanks go to Gretha Smart and David Blackmore for the bottle!

This is the Port finish in Glenmorangie’s wood finish line. I love a good Port finish. They’re always so rich and darkly fruity. This one is no exception. Like the other two extra-matured bottlings, this one transitioned to a 12 year age statement around 2010.

Quinta is the Portuguese word for the farm where they grow grapes to make Port, and Ruban is Gaelic for Ruby, so Quinta Ruban, more or less, means Ruby Vineyard. Unless you speak Spanish and French; then it means Fifth Ribbon.

A significant detail, Glenmorangie uses the tallest stills in Scotland, which is one of the factors they attribute their sweetly pure spirit to. The idea is that the taller the still is, the lighter the spirit has to be to make it to the lyne arm, so all the heavier congeners stay in the pot and don’t make it into the spirit. The necks alone are only a few inches shy of a whopping 17 feet tall! Between the number of them and the height, their still room looks like a shiny, copper giraffe-orgy.

Awwww yeah, baby.

After the spirit is distilled, they age it for ten years in first and second fill white oak, like their standard spirit. Then they move it to Port pipes for an additional two years to drink up all the Port influence and infuse it with a hearty red glow.

Nose: I’ve never seen one before, but I imagine this is what a purple gummy bear would smell like… marinated with port in a plastic bucket. Wintergreen pops up in the back of my nose, along with the classic Glenmo’ nutty apricot. Raspberry caramel, and while it’s very dark and fruity it’s also a little earthy. Black licorice opens up as you drink some.

Palate: Grapeheads candy (which were way better than Lemonheads, in my opinion), but overall, this is not as sweet as I though it was going to be. Restrained. Nutty with dried fruit. Raisinets, small oak-y cinnamon and licorice medallions in the finish.

Yes, you just saw a giraffe humping a pot still. Sorry…

Thanks, David Blackmore and Gretha Smart, for the bottle!

French for golden drink of the gods, Nectar D’Or is the standard Glenmorangie release that they then finished in a Sauternes cask. 2011 saw it transition from an NAS bottling to one with a 12 year age statement, but I still see a lot of the NAS stuff around me at the moment. The Nectar D’Or I’m tasting here is the original.

Sauternes, not to be confused with Sauterne, is a sweet wine from an appellation in the Bordeaux wine region, Sauternais. The grapes are infected with botrytis (noble rot), a very fickle type of fungus that under favorable conditions shrivels the grapes, concentrates sweetness and flavors, and adds some extra funkiness to the mix. The wine is sweet, acidic and slightly nutty, usually cask matured for 1-3 years. Though it is difficult to make because the fungus is so hard to control, Sauternes can age for an extremely long time once in the bottle. Noble rot’s difficult cultivation makes after market casks rare and, therefore, expensive.

This cask finish is one of three in their extra-matured line up, along with a Sherry finish and Port finish; Lasanta and Quinta Ruban respectively. Despite the similar base spirit they are all very different, and a great way to explore what a cask finish can do for a spirit.

Even outside of the atypical finishes, Glenmorangie has one of the most involved wood programs in the industry for their own casks. They air dry wood from forests they own in the Ozarks and then use it to cooper casks for Jack Daniels and Heaven Hill. After those distilleries finish using them to mature Bourbon, the casks are shipped to Scotland where they are used only two more times by Glenmorangie. The careful wood selection and high level of involvement along the way helps maintain a high quality of spirit.

Nose: Dessert wine, it almost starts to smell like Oloroso before taking a sharp turn to funky apricot, key lime pie and bamboo chopsticks. Heavily toasted, nutty graham cracker crumbs and cheesecake slide under pomegranate and very prominent ginger powder. 

Palate: The fortified wine is the first to break out here, dancing over waffles and a gingery finish. Balanced lime pith bitterness, wafts of peaches, dried licorice root and a tiny bit of almond extract. I can almost taste a very fruity coffee in the long end of the finish.

Among many other savory things, Sauternes pairs well with oysters, lobster, foie gras, or blue cheese. I happen to know whisky goes very well with all of those, too, the foie and cheese being two of my favorites. Thanks again to Gretha Smart and David Blackmore for the samples!