22/02/2023 Royal Lochnagar again

Royal Lochnagar 27yo 1952/1979 (70° Proof, Gordon & MacPhail Connoisseur's Choice, Oak Casks): this should be fairly different from the other day's, considering they were distilled more than forty years apart... Oh! It does not say on the label, but all those black-label Connoisseur's Choice that were not explicitly made for Giaccone were bottled in 1979. They switched to brown labels in 1980. Nose: different alright! This is in the old boys' league, with cigars, plush gentlemen's clubs, smoking rooms covered in wood panels, and a purring fire in the fireplace. There is burnt-wood sawdust and caramelised marmalade, of course (trademarks of a whisky of that era), gunpowder, cordite, and granite chippings. Then, those notes of smoke and elemental sulphur transform into old vegetation, lichens and mosses growing on sandstone. It is deep and complex, and it moves back where we started: with fire -- this time burning in an old stone bread oven. That is not over, however: age-old ink on parchment or yellowed paper, blotting paper, stained to death and starting to shred, old quills in dried-out inkwells, then empty aquariums, which is to say: dried freshwater algae, pet-turtle food residue, and drying gravel, augmented with crumbly dried orange peels. Meow. The second nose brings up old broom brushes, cartoon-witch style, dry, dusty, and covered in microscopic amounts of various powders (ground mandrake root comes to mind), but also old stone tools from an archaeological site. Mouth: holy smoke! This is like putting vase water in the mouth. Algae, lichen, moss roots, sphagnum, but also Verdigris, cordite, burnt moss, and loads of stone dust. The attack is surprisingly big, and one could understandably question the modest ABV. It is an unusual palate, one that will doubtlessly deter some, as it is not exactly sexy. The next sip seems more acidic, with ground lime zest that has sat dormant in a metallic container for decades, and only wants to be remembered. Next are cut branches from decades ago, covered in lichen, and destined to be burned, distant smoked mussels, and, again, vase water, greenish-brown with particles of the plants it once held. Finish: much easier in the finish (read: more-traditionally appealing). The notes from the mouth move to the background to allow orange marmalade into the spotlight. It is not show-offish at all -- in fact, it sports signs of decay: patches of mould, and a metal taste certainly imparted by a copper spoon left in the jar for too long, but still: a bit of fruit! It is as though the lichen and algae were set on fire, leaving but traces of their presence, in amongst cordite, gunpowder, charred twigs, and ash. The second sip introduces a drop of apple juice, and some unidentified, chewy paste, resinous, quite clearly vegetal, but discreet, and not earthy in the way peat can be. It grows sweeter the more I drink, yet never becomes sweet. Cane sugar covered in lichen, perhaps? Sugar cane from which the juice has been pressed out and the sugar machine-extracted? Vase water stays in the throat for hours afterwards. This tastes like illicit hooch made in a shed down the back of a garden in the XVIIIth century, and nothing like what comes out of a modern factory that churns out millions of litres of formatted product each year. Actually, I find it closer to the oldie from Tyrone than to Lochnagar. Spectacular! What a nose! 9/10