05/05/2020 My place 2B

Balblair 8yo 2011/2019 (57.8%, Cadenhead Small Batch, 1 x Puncheon re-racked into 2 x 1st Fill Sherry Hogsheads, 648b): nose: fortified wine and dark chocolate, sticky toffee pudding, Port, ripe blood orange, a drop of burgundy nail varnish in Brazil-nut butter, rapeseed oil, butterscotch and Cointreau. After a few minutes of breathing, it is rather faded blood-orange peels, tangerine peels, left on the radiator, pineapple cubes in a glass of Port and maple syrup. The chocolate re-appears, slowly-slowly, in the form of liqueur pralines. Caramelised apricot compote, faaar in the back, and a suggestion of smoke (a fruit-tree-log fire in another room). Hazelnut paste is the late guest to the party. Mouth: the attack is soft, though it quickly grows in power, with grated ginger and green chilli. The undertones are liqueur pralines (Cointreau), blood-orange peels, piping-hot apricot compote (how many words in '-ot' can you string together -- or not?), then hazelnut paste and almond butter, with a drop of Madeira wine. This is nutty and gently bitter. Finish: delicious chocolate with a blood-orange filling. The liqueur has all but gone, now, as has the wine, making room for hazelnut paste and Brazil-nut butter to accompany that exquisite chocolate-y touch. It is chocolate coulis, rather than chocolate bar, and it is playing the sweet (added sugar), the bitter (nutty chocolate) and the acidic (blood orange) influences harmoniously. Lovely drop that I enjoy more than the first time. 7/10 (Thanks for the sample, SW)

Benrinnes 21yo 1997/2019 (58.7%, Cadenhead Single Cask, 1 x Bourbon Barrel, 156b): nose: a Benrinnes alright, with all sorts of pine needles, resin, orange zest or zesty orange. The second sniff is quite perfume-y, with lilac, bulrush and late-April honeysuckle, as well as hazel foliage. Then, it turns into a crossing between oaken-furniture wax and clean engine oil. The mechanic who is changing the oil is drinking some citrus juice or soda -- probably mandarin-flavoured, or a mix of mandarin and nectarine, with an added spoonful of walnut oil. Woah! As one tilts the glass, beeswax appear, made by bees that have foraged pine trees, obviously. Mouth: spicy enough, it has balsa wood, soaked in orange-and-nectarine juice, pine resin, orange zest, dried to a bitter dust, horseradish -- I am telling you: it is spicy! Behind the spices, the bitter note of dried zest takes up more and more space, yet it never becomes a bother. Orange pith, blood-orange peel, treacle, chives, even green onions, at a push. Finish: a whirl-y gig of orange zest, young white wood (birch? Balsa?), pine needles and sap, gingery paste with a teaspoon of glycerine to keep it palatable. The finish is long; it coats the palate, gums and teeth with wood spices and orange-peel dust. The last thing to appear by the glottis is melted chocolate, which rounds off the spicy bitterness particularly adequately. 8/10 (Thanks for the sample, SW)

After a couple of sips, one also realises how strong the second one is. Two drams in total and I feel under the influence, already. Enough for today.