This bottle is on its last leg, after barely surviving the Campbeltown festival,
earlier this year. Let us have it a final time for proper notes.
Balvenie-Glenlivet 12yo 1979/1992 (59.5%, Cadenhead Authentic Collection 150th Anniversary Bottling): nose: an odd combination of burning alcohol and gentle flowers. It has turpentine, ashes and embers, fierce vinegar, yet also dandelions and forsythia. Breathing for the past year or so has done it a lot of good, and it is now more explosive, in terms of aromas. Putty and plasticine, disgorged white-wine casks, oilskins, and even a hospital smell -- not disinfectant, rather a cleaning agent used to clean hospital floors. It also has new rubber, warm bakelite, walnut stain and flesh and bung cloth. Letting is sit in the glass for a while allows more solvents to come through (mostly turpentine), and also diesel fumes. Even thirty minutes in, the alcohol remains very bold. Burnt paper, butter, slowly melting in its paper wrapping on the warm kitchen top. With water, the white-wine-cask impression becomes even more prominent, then it is the floral side that emerges and shines. Later yet, the nose gives ink-gorged blotting paper. Mouth: biting, acidic, it soon settles and becomes very flowery; buttercups, daisies, dandelions, pollen, ozone, maybe a drop of honey, gorse, thistles... quintessentially Scottish, eh? :-) Ginger (also Scottish). With water, it is destroyed. Sunk. Drowned. It is now merely watery and has lost all its charm. Finish: well, the heat is there, but is comforting, rather than aggressive, with flowers again (buttercups and daisies) and a certain sweetness (sugar-powdered doughnuts and white chocolate). It still has that odd note of dandelion-stem sap, which I am not too fond of, but the whole is pleasant indeed. The ginger has pretty much disappeared, replaced with ivy leaves (do not try them at home, kids! Poisonous!) The finish leaves the mouth anaesthetised. With water, the heat is but a memory, now. The flowers are there, more discreet, the mouth is less numb, but the flavours are toned down beyond recognition. Not a good swimmer, this one! 7/10
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| So long! |
Balvenie-Glenlivet 12yo 1979/1992 (59.5%, Cadenhead Authentic Collection 150th Anniversary Bottling): nose: an odd combination of burning alcohol and gentle flowers. It has turpentine, ashes and embers, fierce vinegar, yet also dandelions and forsythia. Breathing for the past year or so has done it a lot of good, and it is now more explosive, in terms of aromas. Putty and plasticine, disgorged white-wine casks, oilskins, and even a hospital smell -- not disinfectant, rather a cleaning agent used to clean hospital floors. It also has new rubber, warm bakelite, walnut stain and flesh and bung cloth. Letting is sit in the glass for a while allows more solvents to come through (mostly turpentine), and also diesel fumes. Even thirty minutes in, the alcohol remains very bold. Burnt paper, butter, slowly melting in its paper wrapping on the warm kitchen top. With water, the white-wine-cask impression becomes even more prominent, then it is the floral side that emerges and shines. Later yet, the nose gives ink-gorged blotting paper. Mouth: biting, acidic, it soon settles and becomes very flowery; buttercups, daisies, dandelions, pollen, ozone, maybe a drop of honey, gorse, thistles... quintessentially Scottish, eh? :-) Ginger (also Scottish). With water, it is destroyed. Sunk. Drowned. It is now merely watery and has lost all its charm. Finish: well, the heat is there, but is comforting, rather than aggressive, with flowers again (buttercups and daisies) and a certain sweetness (sugar-powdered doughnuts and white chocolate). It still has that odd note of dandelion-stem sap, which I am not too fond of, but the whole is pleasant indeed. The ginger has pretty much disappeared, replaced with ivy leaves (do not try them at home, kids! Poisonous!) The finish leaves the mouth anaesthetised. With water, the heat is but a memory, now. The flowers are there, more discreet, the mouth is less numb, but the flavours are toned down beyond recognition. Not a good swimmer, this one! 7/10
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