K&L Wines Single Sherry Cask Selection
I have been sitting with this bottle for a few weeks trying to compile my thoughts. I haven’t had Glenturret before as their OBs are pretty much import only for me. There’s an occasional IB that hits our area distributors but it’s not often. So when K&L had a 17-year-old Glenturret cask, I jumped in blind.
This Old Particular bottling is one of 248 bottles charged from a sherry puncheon. Distilled in March 2004 and bottled in October 2021 with no coloring added and non-chill filtered. Bottled at a cask strength of 55.8%
Tasting Notes
This is a very sherry-forward malt on the nose. It’s earthy and metallic. Dark stone fruits – Plum, prunes, summer peaches, days, and blackcurrants. Some botanical fruit blossoms aromas peek out. Compote or cobbler made in a cast iron dutch oven. Brown sugar, pie crust, cacao nibs, roasted coffee. Undoubtedly in my mind are these iron and copper metal notes. I just keep recalling Scouts making cobbler over wood coals. A nutty richness of hazelnuts and cashews. Water brings out those baking spices a bit more with some glove, ginger powder, and allspice. I would say there’s even a slight peppermint to the nose.
Plenty of sweet notes on the palate but there’s a hearty herbaceous element to this whisky as well. Juicy, vibrant fruits – Appricot jelly, peaches, fig, and blackberries. A mild lactic quality of sweetened condensed milk or heavy cream. The oak is very present with moldy decaying wood flavors. Leather, rawhide, rope. Water brings out even more sweetness to the malt as well as a dull heat. 30+ minutes of air even more mellowing the alcohols and homogenizing the malty flavors. Charcoal, tobacco, and ash. Heavy minerality that I think is more of the malt character than the cask. Cinnamon candies and spiced shortbread. There’s an umami note, not salinity driven, that I can’t quite place.
The finish is full of tobacco and cocoa flavors. 100% cacao dark chocolate, bitter but pleasantly decadent. Date and fig cookies. Ginger snaps. A musty oak flavor is on the finish as well that is more astringent and is helped with water. Medicinal cherry lozange. Leaving the glass out for an extended period of time really softens the charcoal astringent notes from the cask. Hay and grassy finish. Dusty, old cedar closet. Still, a very present metallic note that it’s almost like I’m drinking from a stainless steel flask.
Overall
It’s simple in its flavors and the sherry dominates a bit too much on the palate. Both water and resting time helped soften the bitter oak tremendously. But temperature really had much more of an impact.
The more I sat back with this bottle, the better it became to enjoy. If I turned off my brain and just poured myself a glass, the metals are actually kind of interesting. When I dug into it, truly dissected it; there’s an ashy, wood ember, unpleasantness to the malt.
If you enjoy a mineral-rich and metal-heavy malt, this bottle is going to click for you. I will absolutely enjoy the remainder of this bottle but I think I’m just going to pour it into a rocks glass and sit with it by the pool.
