I attended the Scotch Malt Whisky Society ("SMWS") March Outturn preview tasting at the Jack Rose Saloon here in Washington DC last night - it was an interesting experience. They gave us all small pours (~.5-1 oz) of the six casks being released, and the entire evening was structured as a guessing game. Our host was Mike Hong, who was weirdly familiar to me, but perhaps I just know from seeing him at a bar here and there. He did a good job of engaging people and moving the night along from cask to cask.
The first cask we sampled was a young Glen Moray. Here are the official notes:
On the nose neat we immediately had images of peaches poached in bourbon, Battenberg cake, marzipan as well as chocolate and hazelnut stollen. We then took a sip and managed to taste them all next to Swiss rolls, strawberry jam, white chocolate crème brûlée and a cardamom tonka bean cheesecake with caramelised pears. A drop of water and we indulged with a sticky sultana pudding served with golden syrup and a glass of ice wine as we finished on the palate with a big bumper bag of white jazzies (snowies), those classic white chocolate button-shaped sweets covered in multi-coloured hundreds-and-thousands.
Interesting - I didn't read any of this before tasting, and going back to read it the next day, very little of it resonates! Bottled at a rousing 60.7%, let's just get to it:
Nose: Very sugary - vanilla, caramel, faint hints of mint, some herbs buried in there as well. But overwhelmingly this is a very sweet whisky - I would have guessed Glen Moray even if I hadn't accidently looked at the ordering page and discovered the six whiskies before the guessing game even began. Freshly baked cookies.
Mouthfeel: Silky but thinnish.
Palate: Surprisingly oaky on the tongue - dry, tannic, the vanilla becomes toffee, I get lemon and also freshly baked biscuits, and a distinct sweet marshmallow note. It's very pleasant, and complements the sweet nose quite well. Still, it's obviously quite young - the initial alcohol sweep is quite bright and brash - and is missing a few layers of flavors I might have desired to find.
Finish: Oak and vanilla and a vague French toast note. Pleasant but unassuming, shorter end of medium.
Verdict: This is a decent Glen Moray, certainly. Priced on the lower end of the SMWS scale ($100), this is probably a pretty good deal for a casual sipper. But it wasn't for me - I would have liked it at twice the age and more depth. I suspect that they were worried about how much oak it had already taken on at only 7 years, and bottled it for that reason; maybe it would have been an interesting candidate for a wine cask finish. Good, not stellar.
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