17/10/2025 Glenlossie

Glenlossie d.1969 (40%, Gordon & MacPhail Connoisseurs Choice, b. ca. 1989): my miniature does not have the HI/AFG code, but it is relatively safe to assume it is not wildly different a bottling date. Perhaps 1988? Nose: ha! ha! Dusty brine and pickle juice spilled on cardboard, of course. Let us allow this to breathe for a moment... There we go. Now, it is earthy, root-y vegetables -- sugar beet, parsnip, swede. That veggie side is only the background, with the earth hogging most of the spotlight, by the way; this is not a vegetable stew at all. The nose also has a pile of old letters, some wax sealed, the wax so old and dry it is crackling. Further on, we have timid fruits, umeshu and pickled pearl onions. It becomes rather plum-y, in a subtle way: none of that exuberant, juicy vibrance. No! It is plums that have been sitting in the fruit basket for many a day and that are slowly fading. It even has a whiff of dried moss, or even mould. The second nose seems at once fruitier and more rustic. Here are fruits served in the orchard's pavilion that have not gone through a process of selection or preparation of any kind. The pavilion has polished chairs and tables coated in patina and dust. Imagination may detect a thin veil of smoke too. Mouth: ooft! It has lost none of its freshness or strength. Acidic green grapes, fresh plums, greengages, and a green lick too, whether it is a bay leaf or kumquat foliage. Chewing emphasises citrus, and it is indeed kumquat, yet also bergamot and tangerine. They cannot totally suppress the matching leaves (in other words: it has a soft bitterness), but the fruits are louder. Only after a minute-or-so do we catch some minty cardboard in the front half of the mouth, with the mint just above the top incisors and the cardboard more to the sides. It gives a minimal impression of cork too, hardly strong enough to be more than a curiosity. The second sip is sweeter, ripe with plums coated in honey, succulent flowers also dripping honey, and a frying pan used to shallow-fry honey-glazed shallots, then deglazed with cider vinegar. Swirling the whisky around the mouth sprinkles some dust here and there. Or is it smoke again? Finish: strangely youthful (not brash), this finish welcomes a chewy fruit paste (mostly plums) gone slightly stale, and grape-or-plum juice in an open bottle left out for too long. Come to think of it, it has umeshu here too, at the end of the afternoon, having spent hours in a glass. Dried cranberries are next, then pickled beetroot, and tangerine segments macerated in berry juice (probably not wine). The second gulp is sweet and berry-laden. Rehydrated dried cranberries, lingonberry compote off a dusty hammered-copper skillet, and plums wet with blackcurrant liqueur. It retains a tame bitterness, almost hidden behind the sweetness that now dominates. This is long and comforting, the sort of whisky one could easily get to know very well very quickly. Delicious! How underrated Glenlossie is! 8/10