Glenmorangie Malaga Cask Finish 12 Year

NOSE Fruity-taffy sweet, heavy malt, honied dried fruits, sultanas, raisny-pruny and a light touch of metallic medicinal notes and dry oakiness. Starts with a candy-style sweetness, but as it opens it morphs into more of a darkly fruity/raisiny-pruny style of sweetness. Lovely. PALATE Raisny-pruny, dried orchard fruit, copper, toasted graham, dark honey, blackberry taffy, vanilla frosting and a bit of oak and nuts. Palate switches things around from the aroma and starts fruity sweet and slowly turns to more candy sweet.

This malt was fruity, earthy, and sweet. My bottle was a little bitter on the finish, perhaps because of sulfur in the Malaga cask. Excellent scotch with a cigar. It gave plum and cocoa to the tobacco as a complementary gift. Nice, long, oily finish.

Glenmorangie is one of Scotland's fanciest distilleries. This Malaga Cask Finish is actually a whisky that has been matured in Malaga Dulce casks which is a fortified wine from another Andalucia location (diferent from the sherry triangle) but made from the Moscatel and Pedro Ximenez grapes. The "Malaga" Term is only to describe the origin, but you can compare it to a very sweet sherry. Bottled at 47.3%abv, beautiful tawny color. On the nose, this is a very wonderful, inviting dram. Tiramisu dessert. Red fruits, a nice coffee, cream. Rice with milk, Kahlúa liquor and caramelized apple. After the first sip, the aroma turned into sugar syrup, maple honey, sweet popcorn, marshmallows and tabaco. On the palate, it starts with a beautiful blackberry marmalade flavor. Then it changes to cinnamon and orange. A second sip gave me the tiramisu from the nose and bitter coffee beans. A third sip revealed cotton candy. Very complex. Aftertaste is the weakest part without been bad at all. Lots of hay, salt and tobacco. The second sip was a lot more bitter, with a dark chocolate note, a 100% cocoa one. Overall, this is one great whisky. I actually feel that Glenmorangie has made some not great expressions lately, but they did hit the nail on this one. Yes, it is overly sweet, but i have a sweet tooth. Beautiful dram 90/100 is my score.