I visited London for the first time over Christmas of 2017. Most of the “sites” I wanted to see were the whisky shops for which London is known, and at the top of my list was the Cadenhead’s shop. Cadenhead’s releases new products roughly quarterly and seems to have an ever-changing selection in their stores as a result, so I wasn’t entirely sure what I would stumble upon while there. Yes, I could have ordered online, but where’s the fun in that? Anywho, I picked up several bottles while there (whisky and otherwise), including several bottles from the “cask ends” series, which offers some of their releases in a convenient 20cl format. This Glenburgie was a recommendation from the shopkeeper who was helping me, and at the time I believe they had already sold out of the 70cl bottles.
Smell: Lots of lemon, then a hint of strawberry, overripe honey dew, kiwi, a little table salt, and there’s some funkiness underlying it all. It’s like a very odd fruit salad but it works well.
Taste: Lemon hits the palate first followed by melon, but it’s overripe cantaloupe rather than the honey dew that was indicated by the nose. Immediately following the fruit are malted milk balls and sweet tea. Very easy to drink at full strength. The texture is good, not viscous but not thin either.
Finish: The fruit fades and the milk chocolate/malted milk ball note hangs around for quite a while.
Overall: The combination of fruit, milk chocolate, and malt works really well. I don’t recall exactly how much I paid for this but it was fairly reasonable for a 25 year old single malt. I wish I had another.
Spirit Type: Scotch: Single Malt
Proof: 109.2
Vintage: 1992
Age: 25
Cask Type: American Oak (Reused)
Rating: A-