Country/Region: Scotland/Various.
CATEGORY: Blend.
DISTILLERIES: Glen Elgin and Girvan.
BOTTLER: Compass Box.
BOTTLED: 2017
CASK TYPE: Bourbon Casks.
NUMBER OF BOTTLES: 5838
ABV: 46% Vol.
NOSE: one of those noses so delicate you daren't breath in too hard for fear of shattering it into a million pieces. The citrus, a kind of orange blossom honey thinned with juices of Jaffa, is of the cleanest style imaginable; likewise the barley is fresh and gristy. One of the most ethereal and elegant noses of all time;
TASTE: perfection. This is faultless. This is exactly how whisky should be. A delivery you hope to encounter or create - but suspect you probably never will. And here it is: in all its understated, genteel, feminine, seductive majesty. It is the nose all over again, but this time in liquid form, a physicality which curls against our taste buds and caresses them with the most erotic, arousing finger tip choice;
FINISH: nothing can quite follow the delivery and follow through, but it tries. Though the oaks can now be heard, a little bitterly by comparison, while the spices up the tingling factor;
BALANCE: by no means the first time I have encountered a single malt and grain in the same bottle. But I am hard pressed to remember one that was even close to being this wonderful...This is Compass Box's finest moment.
TASTING NOTES: Jim Murray's 2018 Whisky Bible.
