Speyside.
Full gold. Polished antique brass.
Soft, and takes time to open up, but then slowly fills out to present delicate fresh-fruit notes.
Medium.
Compelling. First, a generous, smooth texture: fruity, sweet and sugary overall, then warming and tart, with baked apple in the mid palate.
Long and warming, with a peppery tingle.
Make: Linkwood.
Age: 37 Years Old distilled 1978
Strength: 50.3% ABV
Place of Origin: Elgin
Region: Speyside.
Soft, and takes time to open up, but then slowly fills out to present delicate fresh-fruit notes; a sweet, clean fruit salad including honeydew melon, grape, mandarin zest, apple and pear over a base of crumbly fudge. Gradually it becomes deeper and richer, like fruit salad in syrup; creamier perhaps, with marzipan, vanilla and a trace of sweet liquorice. Growing gracefully heady and intoxicating, with white rose over a smooth crème brûlée. A drop of water opens up the aroma but doesn’t alter it. More fudge, then an old fashioned fruit shop in summer.
Compelling. First, a generous, smooth texture: fruity, sweet and sugary overall, then warming and tart, with baked apple in the mid palate. An appetising dryness rapidly develops, with black tea and herbal cough candy offset by rum and raisin ice cream, lime and waxy vanilla. Finally, some ginger, clove and a little salt. With water, the apple becomes slightly caramelised, with a suggestion of saccharine-sweet vanilla sponge.
Long and warming, with a peppery tingle. Oaky and herbal with dry, coating tannins and a clean, aromatic conclusion; that spice lingers in the aftertaste, which combines milk chocolate and sanded hardwood. With water it’s drier, but still warming; lighter, more cedary and waxy, the late tannins smoother and longer.