20/02/2024 Clynelish

Clynelish 12yo d.1973 (56.9%, OB exclusively bottled from original cask for Whiskyteca Edward & Edward, b#198): perhaps we should have had this alongside yesterday's, since it is the same age, and a comparable ABV. A matter of time, you know? It is not exactly a plentiful resource, around these parts, and two whiskies in the same day is mostly a fantasy. Nose: well, hello. Although the affiliation with the Adelphi bottling is hard to miss, this one is more austere, with (clean) engine parts and engine grease. It turns slightly grimier in seconds, providing soot and grated coal, yet clean steel and lubricant ready for application prevail. It takes a few minutes to cross the dirt line, after which we have dusty boiler plates and old tools gathering dust in the shed. It does remain very metallic, though. Engine-assembly lines (I feel like naming the Packard plant in Detroit, but I have never been -- much less when it was active), engine grease, petroleum jelly, and then, at last, a twister of waxes. Moustache wax, Barbour grease, encaustic, and old, rustic furniture, thick with many decades of patina. It also has pollen, propolis, and ozone, but, really, those are nothing, next to that wax tide. The second nose has wood burners on canal barges (or river boats), burning fruit tree to keep the cold at bay, and also a mineral side that was not obvious at first -- flint chippings, hot sands, riverbed pebbles, polished by the waterflow, and dried by the fireplace. There is definitely a soft-water character to this, closer to farming and iron mongering than to sea fishing, or anything maritime. Even the algae are from soft water, and they smell of silt, not salt. And wax, of course. Mouth: holy shiznit! How effing huge is this? It feels like drinking a newly-mechanised coal mine. Soot, metal carts, coal dust, steam engines, and lubricants of all kinds. And the head engineer overseeing the lot, with his starched shirt collar and waxed moustache. Several minutes on the tongue, and this kicks and bucks like a bronco, perhaps more metallic with each passing second. That is certainly unexpected, and properly breath-taking. The second sip helps one realise how desiccating this really is. Still as punchy, it is now halfway between chomping on a piece of coal, and fruity sweets of some imaginary kind -- sweets that would have the intense cinnamon of a brown Boule Magique, the peppermint of Fisherman's Friend, and the fruits of Turkish delights. That is not all, however: it also has a touch of eucalyptus powder, and smoke from a garden fire fuelled by lichen- and moss-covered trimmings. The punch at every sip is simply incredible, stronger and sootier each time, more anaesthetising, and cinnamon-y. Lastly, the palate picks up the earthy bitterness of liquorice root. Finish: it now feels like an entirely-different whisky, suddenly civilised, warming and comforting, still robust, but less rugged and intimidating -- almost plush, in fact. Chesterfield sofas in the wood-panelled smoking room of a gentlemen's club. Only minutes after quaffing does one notice that the finish is still going, and it is more rustic and not as tame as it appeared initially. We have a cast-iron cauldron on an open flame, in which marmalade is gently simmering. It must be a coal fire, because the (faint) smoke is softly acrid. It could also be apple-tree wood, covered in moss. The second sip is in line, yet perhaps adds mint lozenges to all that, which, strikingly, pushes forward the impression of a shed full of moss-covered fruit-tree logs, ready for the fire that timidly burns outside, and generates a lot of acrid smoke. Then, we go back to the gentlemen's club to enjoy a comforting nightcap, or a lukewarm gin & tonic, to fight off the dreary weather. It must be the Honourable Artillery Company, because it has gunpowder towards the death, which, by the way, comes an hour later. It is that long. Such complexity in this mostly-rustic dram! We did well not to have it back to back with yesterday's Adelphi Clynelish. They are not in the same league. 10/10 (Thanks for the opportunity, elskling)