 |
 |
|
|
|
OUR ANNIVERSARY OFFERINGS
While me-tooism may be an option for many producers, Loch Fyne Whiskies prefers to come up with unique ideas of a quality that our customers have come to rely upon. Our two anniversary offerings fit this requirement perfectly.
A few cases remain of Inverarity Decadence!—bottled for our decade (geddit?).
SWR regulars will recall the tears that flowed when the last two cases of Inverarity Ancestral from Aultmore was piped by the Argylls down Inveraray’s imaginatively named Main Street. However, Inverarity had a further three casks. BUT! They had been reduced to 40% in 1998—they surely must be under strength? True, two casks had fallen below 40%—and have been blended into oblivion—but one stayed above the legal minimum for bottling (at 40.2%) and Inverarity have been kind enough to let us have this remarkable whisky for our anniversary bottling. [Malt whiskies are vulnerable to shock and need time to recover between changes. Andrew Symington told SWR18 that he returns malts to wood to settle after reduction with water. As did Richard Patterson in SWR17—“It’s all part of the art... allowing whisky the time to settle.” Check out the backnumber CD-ROM on page 5.] Decadence! (£69) is a whisky that you could not set out to produce—a happy accident. Who would try to mature a whisky for five years at 40%; it would go under strength—surely? The lower strength a whisky matures at (I reckon) gives more maturation and Decadence! shows maturation by the bucketload. Customer Gardner: “Nose: Eh?!!!! ripe figs and Aqua Libra melon juice with sweet heaven following—candyfloss, rhubarb & custard sweeties, banoffee pie and even yoghurt covered raisins. Taste: sweet dry sherry, Lyons syrup, dark chocolate, dried apricots & roasted almonds with oak spice, leather, and a little butter-cream. Wonderfully balanced body, dances around your mouth, chewy, satisfying and long. Score — 9.25 final comment (optional) — I pity the fool who misses out on RJ's bottlin'!!!”
For five years we have been keeping our acclaimed Living Cask following Professor George Saintsbury’s advice from 1920 to keep a cask in your cellar, topping it up, never letting it get below half empty. In this ‘solera’ system the whiskies old and new complement each other. Saintsbury also comments that the best mix is one of ‘Clyne Lish and Glenlivet’. Thinking of the peaty Brora (formerly called Clynelish) and a fine sherry cask matured Glenlivet, we have long had a hankering to try this. Now for our tenth anniversary and with the assistance of Andrew Symington of Signatory we have achieved our ambition. In November 2002 a half hogshead of each were introduced to an ex-Rosebank cask and a sample of the Living Cask from the shop added. The cask yielded 300 bottles after ten months marrying in the wood and the results are every bit as good as we had dared hope for. This Anniversary Offering of the Living Cask has a very bold nose but no prickle; there are some sherry notes with associated strong ester elements, and there is a deep complexity with large elements of intrigue, a whiff of peat—no more; it’s thick, even in the aroma – there’s plenty of entertainment just sniffing it. In the mouth she goes; she’s hot, there’s salt, sweetness and also a little bitter – it’s mercury on the tongue, motile blobs of flavour (he-he-he!) all over the place and some fruit at the start of the finish. Then! There’s a blipvert of peat at the swallow, a momentary promise of pleasures to come, and halfway through the finish Brora’s peat erupts, forcible yet languidly, like an undersea lava fissure. Brilliant whisky, just what we wanted—something different and exceptional. Customer Mangus: “Now I can go to my grave in peace for I have truly tasted the nectar of the gods—the Anniversary Living Cask. Magnificent!” In contrast to our first anniversary offering, the bottling of Inverarity Decadence! which has no packaging at all—quite properly in environmental terms—we have gone a tad ballistic in the presentation of the Anniversary Offering of the Living Cask—but it’s all reusable. The bottle is splendid, unusual, (it’s 75cl but don’t tell the Brussels bureaucrats! And it has a big ‘punt’ in it so it seems particularly big). A tall, elegant flared and rounded form, topped by Tipsy, the Living Cask boy. The back label quotes the recommendation from Saintsbury and gives details of the whiskies and dates involved and confirms that each is ‘one of 300 bottles’. The bottle is in a protective wrap of tweed, woven on Islay. In days gone by every Highland estate had its own pattern of tweed, and until this year the Inveraray Tweed had not been made since 1872. The wrap is secured by deerskin lacing. All delivered to you in a simple cardboard tube, featuring a specially engineered cap to protect Tipsy in transit, with Saintsbury’s original quote and the individual number (of your choice if available) on the package. Anyone buying a bottle (£139) has the option of buying a 20cl sample as a taster (bottle + 20cl taster £164).
|
