Shot Bar Zoetrope

Originally, there were extensive plans in line for the night I landed in Japan, plans that culminated in a Lost in Translation visit to Park Hyatt Tokyo's New York Bar (whose online menu shows a '93 Springbank).  With the 18 hour time change, I was facing a 30 hour day -- dig that math! -- but I had figured that the sleep deprivation training I obtained from my new-parent trials would sustain me.  I was wrong.

I started having some doubts about my optimistic schedule a couple days before the trip, but I forgot that the first day of travel in a foreign county is about 75% more exhausting than a normal travel day.  And if one is already tired, stepping out into the Shinjuku evening, where every business's sign is required to be hyperbolic in tone, color, and wattage, will either lift a person up into an instant Red Bull adrenaline craze or grind the nerves down into a fine dust.  I hoped for the former, received the latter.  But I made sure I at least made the trip to Shot Bar Zoetrope Tokyo.

Shot Bar Zoetrope Tokyo (or Zoetrope for brevity purposes) is a big enough deal that it makes its way into Lonely Planet and Fodor's travel guides as well as Greatest Bars in the World lists.  Despite its large reputation, Zoetrope is located in a tiny room in multi-story building in a narrow alleyway.  But that's the way it goes for all of the bars in Shinjuku, Tokyo (with Golden Gai being the most extreme example).  Luckily Google Maps (which has a terrible time with Japanese addresses) does have Zoetrope accurately spotted a few blocks from the massive Shinjuku station.  (Also see Nonjatta's excellent map and their review.)

Once you find the building -- keep an eye open for the red logo which appears on two signs -- I recommend taking the elevator rather than the stairs to the third floor, since the doors open right where you need to be.

From the official website.
Sorry, all the pics I have from my night are bottle shots.

The owner, Atsushi Horigami, loves whisky and silent film.  I love whisky and silent film.  It was meant to be.  200+ Japanese whiskies line Zoetrope's left wall (from the entrance) and on the far wall silent films are projected all night.  Horigami-san speaks English very well, which is a good thing since almost everyone who showed up the night I was there was from the US.  In fact, half of us were from the LA area.  Yes, this is how far we have to go for some good whisky.  Horigami-san is refreshingly honest about the stuff on his shelves, at one point even talking me out of a more expensive whisky in favor of a cheaper one that would go better with my lineup.

Within Zoetrope's impressive inventory are dozens of distillery exclusive single casks (or cask strength bottlings) as well as a good number of whiskies that have long been sold out.  In fact, I'd say that most of the stuff on the shelf can't be found in stores.  In addition to the excellent Japanese whisky selection, Zoetrope has a couple dozen whiskies from other parts of the world, some alternate spirits, and a couple beers.

It's a cash only bar, but he'll provide a menu of his selections along with prices, which one doesn't always find in Japan.  Compared to whisky bars in American urban areas, his prices are reasonable.  My tasting included four very exclusive single malts, but for it I paid less than one would for two glasses of Johnnie Walker Blue in LA.  Though that may say more about Blue's prices and Los Angeles.

Next up for Wednesday:  Notes from my Zoetrope whisky tasting.

Notes from a tasting: The Yamazaki Tasting Room

After a disappointing tasting at the end of the distillery tour (see yesterday's post), I walked down to Yamazaki's Tasting Room.  The "Room" is a wide open space with a multi-tiered Whisky Library lining two sides.  The Library:

Those bottles were not for sampling as many of them were historic.  Some curiosities in the bunch, too, including mint, juniper, and lavender flavored malts in the photo above.

While the "library" was more of a "museum", the tasting table did have pages full of goodies to actually drink (for reasonable prices).  I had been prepared for the worst, but oh my goodness yes there were real whiskies to sample.  There were the different cask elements that make up Hibiki (mizunara stuff, peated things, etc.), older age-stated Suntory Japanese malts, and a slew of Beam and non-Beam whiskies.  But three things caught my eye immediately.

Yamazaki distillate - 58%abv
Yamazaki single cask 1995 - 62%abv
Yamazaki single cask 1986 - 51%abv

This was an opportunity to try Yamazaki's high strength new make next to two well-aged high strength whiskies aged in very different casks.  To say that this opportunity intrigued me would be a slight understatement.

Yamazaki new make / distillate, 58%abv
Color - Clear as water
Nose - Fruity/yeasty as all hell right up front.  Then green grapes, pineapple, and cassia cinnamon sticks follow.  After a half hour, a hint of animal fur peeks out but is hollered down by plum slivovitz.
Palate - Slivovitz with a mouthful of geraniums and dandelions and white sugar.  But a nice little herbal bite keeps it from getting too sweet or floral.
Finish - Eastern European fruity brandy, more tuica than slivovitz.
Comments - Dear Suntory: F*** the "Distillers Reserves".  Sell this at $20-$25 and I'll buy it and you'll save money.  You just need your marketing department to figure out how to sell it to someone other than me.

Yamazaki single cask 1995, 62%abv -- ex-bourbon, 19-20 years old
Color - Amber
Nose - Full of tropical and citrus fruits.  Sometimes reminiscent of an old Speyside.  Candied orange peel and jasmine in caramel sauce.  Still some cinnamon bite to it.  Grapefruit juice and vanilla syrup start to show up after 30+ minutes.  Maybe some violets and orange creamsicles.
Palate - Hot, which is not a surprise at this abv.  But very floral.  Confectioner's sugar and brown sugar.  Mild vanilla and caramel.  Milk chocolate.  Still feels young.
Finish - Sweet and peppery (corns and bells).  Again it's young but nicely so, if one prefers to avoid oak.
Comments - They probably couldn't sell this as is due to how bold the spirit is -- the flowers, cinnamon, and fruit from the distillate still shouts after two decades -- but I'd go for it had they bottled it and priced it right (as they had during previous decades).

Yamazaki single cask 1986, 51% abv -- ex-sherry, 28-29yo
Color - Reddened maple syrup
Nose - Obscenely sherried.  Leather and pipe tobacco.  Cointreau and blood oranges.  Toffee pudding.  Very rich grape syrup with a hint of mint leaf.  More toffee pudding.  Crumbling brown sugar between one's fingers.  After nearly an hour, a note of burnt hay arises, the mint and orange oil grow, and some molasses joins the party.
Palate - Subtler than the nose, but very musty.  Teriyaki (yeah, yeah, I know) with something right between Angostura and Peychaud's bitters.  It takes a few minutes to open up.  After 30+ minutes a big tropical fruit note emerges, followed by toffeed coffee beans (if that was a thing), and old furniture.
Finish - Toffee pudding, black pepper, and a blood orange cocktail.
Comments - Holyf***ings**t.  Suntory is losing money by serving this at the distillery.  Not only did it hold up for more than an hour, it improved.  If you go to the distillery and they still have this cask available (because they kicked me out before I drank it all) then have it.  When you hear/read old timers weeping romantically about old Glen Grant, this is it and a sample won't cost you your whole vacation.

I'm quite serious about the last one, except for the part about getting kicked out.  A 29 year old Yamazaki single sherry cask would cost 20x more per pour (thank you, Jim Murray Cult for demolishing the Yamazaki sherry cask market, hugs and kisses from us all) than what I paid for it.  It's one of the most gorgeous noses I've come across.  I realized after I finished my pour that nothing could follow it.  So I bought another pour of the sherry cask, chatted with a Guinness-loving Japanese couple, and felt very thankful to exist in that moment.

A Visit To Yamazaki Distillery

The Yamazaki distillery is in Oyamazaki, a quick 15ish minute train ride from Kyoto Station via the Hankyu Kyoto Line.  And from the train station it's only a 1km walk.  If you choose to go there, do not do what I did by wandering around, lost in the pouring rain, following one's own handwritten directions for over an hour.  Instead, walk from the Hankyu Kyoto Line station to the JR train station, two minutes away.  The JR station looks like this:

There is an information booth there.  And toilets.  You can find relief in the restroom and assistance at the information desk.  Not the other way around.  The info person will start you in the correct direction and provide a map.  There are also signs.  If you follow the map and the signs, within minutes the distillery will appear up ahead.

The distillery has a Japanese whisky museum and whisky library (more on the latter tomorrow).  It also offers a free tour.  There are only a few tours a day, so you might need to book via the phone number on the distillery website.  Or you can hope for the best and stand in a short line near the entrance.  Either way, be sure to tell them that you require an English tour (via audio recording).  While I was there, none of the staff members spoke more than a handful of words of English, so you'll need to keep that in mind.  Also, I had no luck booking via the phone number as I was told that the entire week was booked.  Instead, I did find success the day I showed up.

To be honest, the tour offers not much in the way of new information for knowledgable whisky folks.  It's more of a beginner's tour through the whiskymaking process.  But it is free.  Something I did learn: Though I knew that Yamazaki and Hakushu make numerous types of whiskies in each of distillery for blending purposes, the differences in those whiskies didn't just have to do with peating/non-peating and distillation times, but were also due to the usage of different yeast strains.  It was nice to hear officially from a distillery that they were playing with yeasts.  I doubt you'll hear that from (m)any Scotch distilleries.

My favorite part of the tour was the many smells throughout, especially in the fermentation room with its super fruity/beery/bakery scents.  The barrel warehouse smelled nice and musty, though I sorta think the warehouse was for show because it was mostly empty.  (Another fact: Yamazaki does not climate control its warehouses, so the temperature and humidity is what it is.)

Some casks:

Not pictured: most of my sideburns

A lovely interior garden that seemed to be a modern take on some of Kyoto's temple gardens:

Just before the tour dropped us off (next to the gift shop, natch), we got to do a tasting of the new Yamazaki and Hakushu NAS malts.  As I mentioned in Monday's post, these products do not demonstrate the distilleries' whisky well.  They are hotter (at 40%abv), flatter, shorter, and blander than their age-stated siblings.  We received them as highballs first and then neat secondly.  While they may have been better in highball form, perhaps as a cool summer drink, more should be expected of a $50-$60 malt.  But they were free pours and certainly saved me a lot of money.

The gift shop had other Beam Suntory products, but also had some non-Beam-Suntory things like Macallan.  What it didn't have much of was......Yamazaki single malt.  There was the NAS (Distiller's Reserve) thing.  And I did pick up a distillery-only malt.  It had no information on it, but came in a cute bottle and was very inexpensive, 300mL for about $12.

Oh and yes, there was a tasting room.  Er, The Tasting Room.  On Friday: The Yamazaki Tasting Room.

Note: unrelated photo

Whisky Observations from Japan (or Where the Hell is the Japanese Whisky?)

I'm starting my two weeks of Japanese posts on a sobering note, but I promise that things will get much brighter and boozier as the days progress....

In hindsight, I should have consulted with The Japanese Whisky Review and WhiskiesRUs before I left for Japan.  But I didn't.  Originally, Japanese whisky was the catalyst for my voyage, but as I planned my itinerary, and other matters came to the surface, whisky became a secondary aspect to my travel.  Nonetheless, whisky made a number of important appearances while I was in Japan.  I drank infrequently while I was there, but what I drank (and what I found) was memorable.  For a comprehensive examination of the current whisky industry from a more knowledgable person, see Dramtastic's, "Japanese Whisky – Where to From Here?".  He talks about the smaller producers as well as the larger ones.  What I'm writing below are my observations from the ground, from the street level (because that's where I'm from, yo), during my seven-day stay.

Before this trip, I thought that the Japanese made the best single malt in the world.  That may sound strange coming from someone who has reviewed 350+ Scotch whiskies and less than a dozen Japanese malts.  But the consistency, the elegance, the richness in the whiskies from Japan's two main players (Nikka and Suntory), demonstrated much greater attention to quality control, and much less corner-cutting, than what has been coming from the Scotch industry's major members over the past half decade.  Perhaps I was misattributing it to a stereotype, but it seemed as if the Japanese distilleries held a greater sense of pride in the product they were bringing to the market.

After this trip, I no longer feel the same way.

As mentioned, Japanese whisky was one of the reasons I went on this trip.  Yamazaki was one of the reasons I scheduled most of my time in Kyoto.  Spending time at the distillery was indeed a lot of fun (as will be detailed in my next two posts) and I am very thankful to have had the opportunity.  But the whisky that Suntory's distilleries are now bringing to the market is not good.  No longer are they putting a 10, 12, or 18 year old on the shelves.  Instead, non-age statement whiskies (called, I believe, Distiller's Reserve) have taken their place.  I tried the Yamazaki and Hakushu NASes twice during my trip, but found them so underwhelming that I decided against buying small bottles to bring home to review.  They're both flatter and hotter than their 12yo predecessors and have nearly no finish.  While the 12s were consistently mid-80s (or grade B) whiskies, the NAS are low-70s (about a C- grade).  And this is all that Suntory is putting on the shelves from what I saw in Japan.

Let me clarify.  Between my time in Shinjuku and Kyoto, I visited 16 liquor retailers.  Out of those sixteen, one had a pair of Yamazaki 12s and Hakushu 12s.  Four had Hibiki 12.  Everything else from Suntory (malt and blend) was NAS.  Nikka fared slightly on their side of things.  Half of the stores had Yoichi and Miyagikyo 10 or 12 year olds.  One had a 15.  The rest, including all of its Taketsuru "pure malt", was NAS.  (Regarding the smaller producers, about half of the time there's one White Oak, one from Ichiro, and one of Kirin's around.)  Of those 16 retailers, seven were large department stores (like Isetan) who as of a couple years ago, not only had Japanese whiskies with age statements, but also often had exclusive single casks.  At this point none of them even had a Japanese whisky product with an age statement.  The duty free stores in Narita had almost no Japanese whisky at all.

It appears as if the lead Japanese whisky company (Suntory) is no longer putting age stated whisky on the shelves of liquor stores in two major wealthy urban areas in its home country.  Do Osaka and Yokohama have all the AS (age stated) whisky instead?  I don't know, but I doubt it.  Yamazaki, Suntory's larger distillery, is just minutes south of Kyoto.  And if the bottles don't make it to Kyoto or even Yamazaki's gift shop......?  Meanwhile, my local Costco here in Southern California has at least three cases of Hakushu 12 on the shelf for a low price.  So is the US getting all of Suntory's AS malt, or are we now seeing the last of it?  I don't know.

One of my Kyoto neighbors

I've been told by a couple of fellow whisky curmudgeons that Suntory "f**ked up" when it came to underproducing and underpricing their AS whiskies as well as anticipating the market's movement.  As you may have noticed, I am suspicious about the claims and motivations for the Scotch industry's descent into NAS releases.  Thus I was somewhat doubtful about the claims about Japan's aged stock shortage.  But now, I think it has to be at least somewhat true.  I can't envision the same companies who had released gems such as Yamazaki 18 and Yoichis 15 and 20 now having much pride in the uninspiring, almost generic, NAS products whose labels hold the corporate name.  These new products certainly have their place as sub-$30 starter whiskies, but they are taking the same price spot as the old 10/12s.  Suntory's and Nikka's malts may still have the consistency, but I no longer see the elegance, the richness, or the quality control.  (To be fair to Nikka, the Yoichi NAS is better than both of Suntory's Distiller's Reserves and is priced lower.)  Whether or not someone did f**k up or there was an unforeseen volume boom, consumers are losing out.  Customers have a lot of choice in the world whisk(e)y market right now.  How much loyalty will they feel towards the large Japanese brands?

If any of you have found similar or different whisky circumstances in Japan this year, please let me know in the comments below.  It was disorienting to walk into shop after shop after shop and find only a small corner of NAS Japanese whisky every time.  I'm hoping that I was only caught up in a synchronicity that left everything from Takashimaya to Yamazaki to Lawson's to the corner liquor shop devoid of the same things for a small window of time.

But if you're traveling in Kyoto or Tokyo you may be comforted to know that many of the bars still have the old Suntory and Nikka AS malts we've come to know and love.  And the bars, dear god the bars, the whisky in the bars.  I won't spoil the upcoming posts here, but......there is whisky in the bars.  Will the bars still have the Japanese classics next year?  I have no idea.

BUT!  And I shall end on another but.  There is sooooooooooooo much Scotch whisky to be found in Japan right now.  Holy moley.  Most of the hole-in-the-wall liquor shops (not to mention the bars) I visited had a slew of Scotch single malts (some of which have been on the shelf for more than 5 years) at very good prices.  A few shops had staggering (not hyperbole) selections.  While there, I thought to myself, "So this is where the Scotch has gone."  Had I not been carrying my home on my back like a bespectacled turtle, I would have returned with a case of goodies.

(source)

So, take heart whisky explorers, you can find all of the Scotchy gems (from indies to officials) that I left behind in Japan.  Just don't expect to find much, you know, Japanese whisky.

How was your week?

I just flew in from Kyoto and boy are my arms tired.  Some whisky things happened during my stay, and I'm changing all of the posts I had planned for the next two weeks so that I can promptly share my experiences.

In the meantime I highly recommend Dramtastic's post "Japanese Whisky – Where to From Here?", from a couple weeks ago.  Also, Jordan had a great piece about Whisky Blending last week.  And if you haven't seen Serge's NAS post from yesterday, you should give it a read.  While it's definitely an April Fool's joke, there's a dose of vitriol within it that, joking or not, is pretty refreshing to see coming from whiskyfun.

Meditations on Stay-At-Home Fatherhood and also Girvan 48 year old 1964 Nectar of the Daily Drams (Single Grain)

You will pick your baby's nose.  Write that down and accept it.  There are the nasal sprays and Boogie Wipes.  There are respirator bulbs and the nightmarish Snot Suckers.  But sometimes the wee snoot is just sitting right there on the edge of her nostril and nothing else can remove it like your thumb and forefinger.  And it's not that bad, really.  Unless you get the Iceberg Booger.  You think it's just a little nub and then you pluck it and it turns out to be a half-foot-long succubus, as if her right nostril is goddamned clown car, and you shove the snot in a tissue and you almost throw up on her bedroom carpet.  Other than that, you'll be fine.

---

During the first three months of Mathilda's life, I probably tripled my drinking.  At least I wasn't sleeping either.  Or eating consistently.  My memories of the first three months have either blown themselves up or are desperately trying to.  I'm glad that nature assumes parents will responsibly maintain a helpless pupa while they can barely keep themselves alive.  There's nothing like seeing the clock read 2:30pm and realize that you haven't eaten or hydrated during the 10 hours you've been awake and then walking to Domino's for bacon & jalapeño cheesy bread and then washing that "food" down with a highball of whatever.

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At some point Mathilda started sleeping really well.  And that was the point that I realized I needed to return to the one-drink-a-day life (while staying in four-desserts-a-day mode for the next seventeen years).  When I got to that awareness level my preferences changed drastically.  At the end of a full day of battling (er, safely raising) my ever-calm child, when I finally sit down to have a drink, I no longer have any interest in so-so whisk(e)y.  Not even kinda-good whisk(e)y.  Children teach parents new unknown levels of exhaustion and in the quiet after the onslaught this parent only wants to drink something excellent.  Something so good that I exclaim, "Man, that is f---ing great!" loud enough to wake my child that just took over an hour to put to bed.  And I've had a lot of *shrug* whisk(e)y recently.  I've dumped more whisk(e)y down the drain than ever before.  Whisky, astonish me.

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Okay, maybe those expectations are unreasonable with this whisky as it is a single grain.  Even if it is a forty-eight year old single grain.  I was trying to count up how many single grain whiskies I've had, but they've been so forgettable that I don't really know.  There was a single cask Greenore, from Ireland, that was kinda fun.  A couple of North Britishes that were palatable.  Compass Box's Hedonism (a vatting, admittedly) smells very nice.  But I think I've had 15-20 others that weren't far removed from a watery mix of Malibu Rum and blended American whiskey.  I'll settle for:  Single Grain Whisky, be somewhat memorable for positive reasons.

Distillery: Girvan
Ownership: William Grant & Sons, Ltd.
Bottler: Daily Dram
Series: The Nectar
Age: 48 years (1964-2012)
Maturation: probably an American oak cask
Region: Lowlands
Type: Single Grain
Alcohol by Volume: 49.3%
Chillfiltered? No
Caramel Colorant? No

Don't worry nervous people, no whisky was harmed in the filming of this event.

The whisky has a brass color, a little lighter than I expected from something that spent almost a half century in a barrel.  The nose starts off with roasted corn, furniture polish, tree bark, and clover honey.  Then it takes on notes that flit between blooming violets and lilac-scented hand cream.  Soon some grape candy joins the party, followed by pine needles.  It grows more candied with time, and picks up some mustiness along the way.  After a good 45 minutes in the glass, there's also some hazelnut liqueur, toffee, pencil shavings, curry powder, roasted grains, and lots of sugar.  It's happily light on the vanilla and devoid of coconut.  The palate has quite a kick for such an oldie.  A real sweetie with lots of wood spice (thinkin' cinnamon syrup and green peppercorns), whipped cream, and caramel sauce.  And then there's all the tannins and wood pulp.  After 45 minutes not a hint of coconut (yay!).  Again, light on the vanilla with some roasted almonds thrown in.  It's mostly oak though very tolerable.  The finish is sugary and toasty.  Those almonds now float in toffee.  Crème fraîche and agave nectar.  Some woody bitterness appears but somehow remains palatable.

Color me almost astonished:  A single grain that I (gasp!) like.  Yes, it did take 48 years to blossom and did cost at least €300 -- though, €300 is not an unreasonable price for a 48-year-old whisky in this market.  It's also enormously oaky, which should not be a surprise at its age, so that's a warning for those who'd rather avoid this sort of thing.  But the oak has allowed some grainy stuff to live on and merge with the tannins and spice.

What it's missing is the artificial-coconut-flavoring note (hence the Malibu rum comment above) that I've found in almost every single grain I've tried.  That note is a dealbreaker for my palate.  The moment I find it, I just don't want to drink anymore.  This Girvan had not even a hint of it.  Could that be attributed to a good cask?

Overall, the nose is the best part, just loaded with decades of oddities courtesy of chemistry.  The palate cannot be accused of complexity, but is very pleasant for those with high oak tolerance.  Meanwhile, the finish is a little on the short side and quite sweet, but never really disappointing.  While I don't think this can compete with great single malts, it would be a good alternative to middling blends and bourbons.  And that's the nicest thing I've ever said about a single grain.

Availability - Possibly a few European specialty retailers

Pricing - €300-€350 w/VAT

Rating - 86

Meditations on Stay-At-Home Fatherhood and also Tomintoul 42 year old 1969 Archives

Back in the '80s and early '90s, my father went on business trips to other states.  Starting around the time I was six years old, he used to sit me down in his home office the night before the trip and tell me that if anything happened to him he wanted me to know that he loved me very much.  These talks would result in me crying uncontrollably, knowing that my dad (who always expresses his love freely on normal days) would die someday and it would definitely be on one of these trips which consisted entirely of him talking to retirees about their annuities and mutual funds.  This talk would come twice a year, every year, and would result in my sobbing every time.  That is, until I was a teenager and began to wonder what the f*** is wrong my father?

Now I am a father and, though science has yet to figure out what hell is going on with the Kravitz Y chromosome, I can begin to understand what he was trying to do.  As a dad, I want my daughter to feel safe, secure, comfortable, and loved at all times.  So I do everything I can to create that environment.  But she's 10 months old and doesn't understand the words I speak.  She recognizes tone and familiar sounds, but the rest of the linguistics are lost.  (To be fair, I don't understand what she says either.)  So, while I'm providing food, formula, and hugs, whatever I am saying to her I am saying for myself.  Eventually she will understand my words, but even then a lot of what I say will also be addressing a subconscious need to feel like a successful loving parent.  I think that a lot of what we do as parents for pre-language children we do also for ourselves.  "I may have made her bottle too hot, waited too long to change her diaper, gotten too frustrated when she wouldn't nap on schedule, dropped too many F-bombs in front of her while we were stuck in traffic, but as long as I sing her the ABCs, direct one-acts between the panda bear and the pink mutant butterfly, hold her when she's upset, and tell her that I love her every day then at least I'm a better father than Adrian Peterson."

My dad, who is very much alive, may have thought he was giving the grim I-love-you speech for my sake but he was likely doing it for himself as well, probably soothing a guilt for being away from his children and one-upping his own father's failings.  Meanwhile, in the process he greatly influenced my constant awareness of my own mortality.  Another instance of doing things with the best loving intent, but not achieving the ends sought.  Is that just fatherhood?  Or is that something we can moderate?  I can't wait to hear from a teenage Mathilda about how my best efforts (let alone my worst ones) warped her brain.  I should probably stop making tugboat horn nosies every time she farts.

---

On the flip side, I would redirect Jupiter's orbit if it drew out her laughter.  Is that for me?  Is it for her?  Does such a diaphanous instant require assigned ownership once it is released into the universe?  I really don't care.

---

Regarding language, I'm pretty sure she does comprehend "No" and "Stop".  Those words clearly mean, "Cry at top of your lungs and swing your limbs violently."  But at least she pauses in her latest act of self-destruction when the protest starts.

---

I think she's going to be teething for the rest of her life.  God help us.

---

I'm going to pour myself a drink.

Distillery: Tomintoul
Ownership: Angus Dundee
Bottler: Archives (Whiskybase)
Age: 42 years (June 1969 - March 2012)
Maturation: ex-bourbon cask
Cask #s: 4266
Bottles: 60
Region: Speyside
Alcohol by Volume: 42.4%
Chillfiltered? No
Caramel Colorant? No

Its color is dark gold.  The nose opens with a big beautiful high-rye bourbon note, followed by milk chocolate and mocha.  Then papaya, tobacco snuff, Dr. Brown's black cherry soda, and the corners of an empty old bookcase.  My left nostril finds loquats.  The right one picks up caramel-layered fudge and furniture polish.  With time, the whisky's nose gets very creamy and sugary, developing a slight split timber note.  Though the palate is very gentle it has a refined toffee→orange peel→pipe tobacco→mint→peach nectar progression.  There are moments of rosewater syrup and black pepper.  A bit of almost rancio-like mustiness.  A mild bitter note pulses throughout.  Gradually it all moves towards basil candy and (lots of) dark chocolate.  Plenty of chocolate malt in the finish, along with clementines and toffee.  A hint of wood cinders.  Maybe some cherry cordials and tart lemons.  It's all subtle, but long lasting.

Wow.  I'll list the caveats up front, I guess.  Firstly, I've found that most ultra-aged whiskies can hang out in the glass for a couple of hours without falling apart.  This one needs to be finished before the first hour is up because it fades immediately after that.  Result of the low abv?  Secondly, if you don't like bourbon then this probably wouldn't be your kind of whisky.  The old old oak is unsurprisingly unshy and for a moment the nose is just a kickass spicy bourbon.  It returns to Scotland immediately after that, but still the cask remained vibrant after more than four decades.

But that's it for the qualifiers.  I loved this stuff.  The nose is the star, but the palate progresses in a lovely fashion.  Even though I have limited experience with 40+ year old single malts, I do know that not all of them perform like this one.  So, chasing after ancient stuff and paying premiums won't necessarily land you a winner.  But the Whiskybase fellas did select another gem here.  And to think this was priced at a level now topped by many whiskies half its age in the current market... I sampled this three years too late.

(For other opinions see: Serge, Mark Dermul, Ruben, Macdeffe (and Todd in the comments), and whiskybase.)

Availability - All gone

Pricing - was €160 w/VAT (€132 without)

Rating - 92