Over to Elgin for another Glen Moray – this time in a ‘custom barrel’ – hardly the most useful of descriptions. This spent 13 years in an ex-wine barrel (Chenin Blanc) before it’s 24 month ‘custom’ finish – the bottle check-in sheet (which I managed a sneaky glance at) suggested some form of toasted/charred cask as the finish.
Nose: Cola cubes and cherry heering sit with brown sugars, plump raisings, prune juice and brown sugars. Deeper, there’s stem ginger, chocolate sauce, brown bread and Turkish Delight alongside sticky pan sugars. Dilution reveals the cask influence – corkboard and dusty dunnage floors with sides of burnt caramel, butterscotch and flat Happy Shopper Cola.
Taste: Cask-forward from the get-go. Charred staves, caramelised wood sugars and polished ebony tables. Molasses and orange liquer sits with rose water whilst dried and charred mango slices are joined by spent tobacco and plenty of chocolate. Reduction brightens things up with juicy tangerine, mango sauce, spit-roasted pineapple and gingerbread men.
Finish: Long with chocolate cake, cinnamon and burnt ginger and plenty of charred oak.
A very neat re-charring on top of the wine cask origins have given this Glen Moray plenty of defined caramelised flavours. Fruitiness meets sweet oak in a cask-led expression that’s well-judged, sympathetic and on the right side of oak influence. Smart.