Glenrothes SMWS 30.91 “Deliciously dark and sweet”

Thanks to /u/boyd86 for this sample.

Had a Glenrothes sample. Got a new one. Decided to do them back to back, and see what the difference IBs make.

Heck, if that happens to be fun, maybe I should do it more often?

Oh well. Glenrothes SMWS 30.91 “Deliciously dark and sweet” is a love letter to /u/thewhiskeyjug. Somehow the people who give SMWS their fun, if silly names read his mind, saw into the future, and made an 18 year old dram.

Heck, they even threw it in a Gorda to deal with the Toronto Whisky groups love of Gordas.

The truth is they love big butts and cannot lie (that’s a play on words, I’m witty).

Difference between this and the last one: This is only ex-sherry cask. This is cask strength, single cask, older, made 2 years before the last one, and from the outturn, had very few Angels sapping it’s delicious vapours.

Also was made in a larger cask. A standard hogshead is 225-250 litres, A sherry butt can be 478-500 litres. A gorda? That’s 700 litres of pure sulphur sex.

So let’s see how this turned out, shall we?

Price: Sold out

Region: Speyside

Date Distilled: April 1997

Age: 18 years

Cask Type: Refill gorda

Outturn: 744

Abv: 58.7%

Colour: 5YR 5/8

Nose: Banana, cranberry, sulphur, burnt sugar, lime zest, zucchini bread, cloves, lemon sorbet

Initially it’s a big blast of banana, wood, and red fruit (or what I identify as cranberry, but don’t tell them, they identify as blueberries). Then the Cornwall effect kicks in (they had a sulphur plant there).

Given time, this is very sweet, with lots of acid, a little bit of spice, and some sweet earthiness. Lots to discover here. Like Ontario.

Taste: Strawberry tart, lemon loaf, caramel, mint, oak, sulphur

More acidic, but there’s an undertone of butter. Which is to say I tasted butter. I don’t know why I had to say Undertone.

Lots of caramel, mint. Big oak given time. And then more rotten eggs. Which somehow I’ve started liking the flavour of.

Yeah, I don’t get me either.

Finish: Orange rind, melon, cherry, dry, coconut oil, blackberry, angel food cake, peanut

Odd mix of flavours at the end. That said, it really does work. It’s dry, fruity, and different. There’s bitter parts, but they balance out the sweetness. Lots of earth aspects, good fluffy parts.

And no sulphur. Odd.

Conclusion: This is quite the dram, and it’s really not fair to compare the last one to it. But that’s the nature of reviews so fuck it.

This is subtle. It has flavours that linger on the edges. Lots of fluffy, sweet, earth, and even acidic notes that pair really well together. It’s not the kind of whisky I truly love, which is big flavours. That said, it’s still really, really good. Subtle. Something tasty.

If you don’t like sulphur, run. Run the fuck away from this dram. But if you can handle it, then gorda’s are the shit.

86/100

Scotch review #566, Speyside review #174, Whisky Network review #935