Glenmorangie Allta

Good, rich highland malt. Light copper on the nose, almost like an Irish. Cereal is forward, sharp bite in the mid-palate along with highland earthiness, more bready notes at the end. Pretzel-esque. Buttery on the front, rich barley in the development, finish is kinda short.

This is a fantastic scotch. I have difficulty finding enough ways to express its goodness. On the nose, just a bare hint of char with slight vanilla and citrus. On the palate, the only thing to say is unbelievable balance. The sweetness is balanced with tartness, Char is balanced with richness, spice is balanced with smoothness. And there is just enough vanilla to go with the fruit aftertaste in the finish. The finish lingers long and fades away with definite peach cobbler and apricot. Since I am not a sweet drink fan, pulling off this peach cobbler trick without it tasting too sweet is miraculous. If you constructed the perfect peach cobbler, with 80% peaches and 20% apricot, with no sugar added, and made a sophisticated adult drink with it...that would be Allta. The sad part about this bottle is its limited release in this particular expression. It would be easy to crawl into this bottle at a cookout in late July during the dessert course, and not come out! Thanks to JWSparta in the Greensboro Buyers Club for sharing. $100 in NC, but for a limited time only $70 at Blackwell's!

For those who may not be aware, Glenmorangie is owned by Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy, which also owns Ardbeg distillery. Over the past decade, both Glenmorangie and Ardbeg have been releasing "special" or limited edition expressions. The 10th Private Edition release from Glenmorangie is titled "Allta," which roughly translates to "wild" from Scots Gaelic. The big focus is the yeast used. According to the press releases, the master distiller Dr. Lumsden isolated a proprietary strain of yeast found on barley in the fields right outside the distillery, hence the name Allta. This resulted in quite different whisky from the core 10 Year expression. Nose is slightly sweet and citrusy with notes of freshly baked bread. On the palate you get more citrus, vanilla, and almost raw pizza dough flavors followed by biscuit and pepper finish. For those who prefer bourbon to Scotch, this is an interesting expression as many of the flavor profiles reminded me of some bourbons such, as Four Roses Small Batch. At $100, it's interesting but quite pricey entry point for something different from one of the most approachable Single Malt Scotch distillers.

Beautiful nose, light and balanced taste with little to no burn. Elegant in every way.