After a hectic first week and a bit of whisky, where every other day introduced a bottle from a new country (I’m still processing The Netherlands two days later, and I didn’t even write it up!) and every scotch was seemingly snatched from the jaws of obscurity, maybe it’s nice to sort of resettle and catch our collective breath with a Glen- that everyone recognizes (sorry, Glentauchers). Glenmorangie is the first single malt experience of many fledgling whisky drinkers, and is very widely sold, but that doesn’t mean they don’t try to push the envelope every so often. I got a firsthand experience of that phenomenon a while back with their floor-malted Tusail, a dynamite dram, and they try to take a step out of the ordinary here as well with their extra-maturation expression Quinta Ruban. As far as I can tell, “extra-maturation” is just a fancy way of saying “aging something in one thing, then moving it to another thing”, but Glenmorangie has built a whole range out of this relocation, starting off whiskies in ex-Bourbon cask and then transferring them for the final stage of aging to a variety of other types of vessels. The 12 Year Quinta Ruban gets to spend the last two years of its pre-bottle life in Ruby Port casks, and according to the Glenmorangie site it was the first malt whisky ever to do so. It almost surely gets its name from this practice: Quinta = a wine estate in Portugal, and Ruban is close enough to ruby that I’m not even firing up Google Translate to look into it further.
First things first: this is one sweet-looking mini-bottle of scotch. I like the mini-bottles that retain the same sense of proportion as the full-sized bottles, and this one nails those little details. The Quinta Ruban may be the orangest scotch I have ever seen, thanks to the staining impact of the used Ruby Port barrels. The nose is spicy and fiery, all pepper, smoke, clove, all-spice and briquettes, forcing you to dig for the orchard fruit beneath. It is big, rich and brawny, with an accompanying alcoholic burn (even with water added) amping up burly flavours of maple, mandarin orange, cast iron, sandpaper and chestnuts. Its price is also extra-matured at $92, but I won’t be the one who discourages the big houses in the world of scotch from diversifying their approaches.
This is a pleasing yellow hue with a slight green tint. Nose hints at the crystalline mineral power within. I’m getting yellow apple, fresh parsley, snap peas, mango, and a potent undercurrent of musty white peppercorn. The herbs are more vibrantly green than umami in character. On the palate this is precise and linear, with acids brisk but not punishing … Although hang on, there’s some tangy lemon juice bite after a few sips. A compost bin funk, like old apple cores and lawn clippings, starts to creep in around a fundamentally solid core of green pears and apples, white peach, and lemon-lime zest resting on a chalk and wet slate base. This gentleman is dressed in a dapper suit but there’s something off, perhaps some mud on his dress shoes. Fruit? Check. Minerals? Check. Rotundone? Check. I’ve had Gruners that bounce around a lot more than this one, flopping around like a fish in a boat and always changing their look. This one is less dynamic and more cohesive and laser sharp, with just a slight halo of corruption … Not a bad thing in this case.
cabernetdialectic (Raymond Lamontagne)
Dan Steeves
Peter Vetsch
tylerderksen
pop & pour 