Tasting Notes: Glenturret 10 (SMWS 16.32)

Thanks to SMWSA for the sample!

Distilled March 2001, Price of $95

ABV: 57.2%

Cask: Refill port pipe

Color: light rusty yellow

Nose: waxy red vines, though more wax than sweet, vegetal heat and varnish.

Taste: Salty, but very drying and a little cloying, hard to pick up much more than heat without water. Water brings out a burnt quality, almost ashtray like and sour. Very leathery and polished. I now know what an old person’s mouth tastes like.

Overall: I’m struggling with this one. All I’m getting is scorched earth, and not in a satisfying Islay way. I can’t pick up the sweetness from the port pipe. And after reading through the official tasting notes, I watered it down to try and find them, and I got a little of the icing found on those iced oatmeal cookies, but nothing like below.

Official Tasting Note:

The nose was certainly savoury (salty bacon, roast parsnips, beef in red wine reduction) but also sweet (buttery croissants, marmalade, toffee) with hints of cake embers, engine rooms, tobacco, struck match, floral notes, and ‘old wardrobes’. The palate was rich and substantial, oozing unctuous sweetness, but with balancing spiciness — maple syrup, treacle and a Jamaican Christmas cake. The reduced nose offered zesty citric peel, candied fruits, salty toffee, leather armchairs and coffee. The reduced palate was an amazing dessert, combining lemon meringue pie, sticky toffee pudding and icing sugar-dusted biscotti dipped in espresso. The distillery houses the Famous Grouse Experience.