June 16, 2015

Little H2Hs, today Glen Esk and guest

Glen Esk. Who still knows about Glen Esk AKA Hillside these days. I find it stunning that Blackadder managed to bottle one cask last year, but as I’m probably the baddest whisky blogger ever, I don’t even have another Glen Esk at hand to build a proper doublet. Bah, let’s find something else…

Glendullan 13 yo 2001/2014 (54.1%, Svenska Eldvatten, cask #SE043, 164 bottles)

Since this one came from a Bowmore hogshead, and given that Glendullan is not the biggest spirit in da world, we may well be about to taste Bowmore. Let’s see… Colour: white wine. Nose: chalk mixed with strawberry, kiwi and rhubarb juice. In the background, lemon, seawater and aspirin. Right. With water: Woolite. Mouth (neat): fun stuff. Some mineral Bowmoreness, some acrid green fruits (unripe gooseberries) and ‘chewing on a broken branch’. This is seriously unlikely. With water: better, but there’s a bitterness. Grass juice, burnt thyme – or something like that. Finish: long and very unlikely. Bitter/burnt/grassy. Comments: some kind of ‘no-limits’ whisky for some kind of Swedish death metal band members. I find it fun, but ‘only fun’. Well, as fun as Taylor Swift singing The Queen of the Night’s aria. SGP:363 - 75 points. But yeah, we came here for the Glen Esk…

Glen Esk 30 yo 1983/2014 (54.4%, Blackadder, Raw Cask, refill sherry butt, cask #4929, 328 bottles)

AKA Glenesk AKA Hillside AKA the closed distillery that everybody’s forgotten about. It’s true that we’ve already tried some sister casks (Abe Rosenberg/Duncan Taylor stock) and that those have been… ach, err, strange. It’s to be noted that 1983 was the distillery’s antepenultimate year of distilling. Colour: dark gold. Nose: it’s a bit as if someone had finished some diesel oil in a sherry butt, and the funniest part is that this is not unpleasant at all. Quite the opposite! Humidor, tea box (where your mother’s always been keeping assorted kinds of herbal teas), old copper coins, shoe polish, hay… Plenty of hay and eucalyptus. With water: more hay and eucalyptus, plus orange zests. So, something pretty oriental. Mouth (neat): fat, very herbal, phenolic, grassy… Really a malt unlike any other. Bark, star anise, green tea, cough lozenges, tar, grapefruits. All lovely. With water: orange cordial, old cough syrups. Excellent. Finish: long, herbal, orangey and phenolic. A drop of yellow chartreuse. Comments: if you’re a serious malt aficionado, drop the big brands and buy this very bottle, if you can find it. That’s an order! Because, this may well be my favourite Glen Esk/Glenesk/Hillside ever – but I’ve barely tasted a dozen. Shame shame shame (shame on me). SGP:452 - 88 points.