Knick Knacks

What's going on around the store this week? Let's see. I had a chance to sample the upcoming Glenmorangie release for 2015 yesterday: the Túsail. I think people are going to be really pleased; mainly because it's a whisky that was planned and created more than ten years ago, rather than something thrown together for the sake of new marketing. Much like Bruichladdich's Bere Barley experiment that was released a while back, Dr. Bill Lumsden has created a ten year old ex-Bourbon cask-aged single malt using a completely different strain: Maris Otter barley. Apparently Maris Otter was all the rage with brewers and maltsters back in the 1960s, but fell out of fashion after more efficient strains were developed and utilized. Dr. Bill managed to locate a batch of the barley from a grain company and had it floor malted at the Glenmorangie distillery, rather than commercially malted per the norm. Ten years later, we've got a limited number of Túsail bottles headed to the U.S.

I was impressed. If you liked the Bere Barley from Bruichladdich, you'll enjoy this as well. It's more textural, there are inherent flavors of ginger and spice that are not normally present in most single malts, and it almost turns beery on the finish (kind of like some of the American craft whiskies distilled from drinkable beer). I think it should clock in around $99 when it arrives, but I can't confirm that. That was an off-hand estimate from one of the guys from LVMH.

It's nice when we get something new and interesting that was actually from a seed planted (no pun intended) more than a decade ago, rather than something whipped up for the sake of it. I asked Kyle if he liked it when we were through, and he said to me, "When was the last time we didn't like something from Glenmorangie?"

Well said.

-David Driscoll