Tell me a joke! Those words chill the mind, sap the spirit, and stop all but the hardiest in their tracks. And writing a whisky column is just the same: the constant need to find puns is a gruelling job. A whisky business, you might say.
Luckily, Scotland’s favourite rejuvenating tipple – and no, I don’t mean Irn Bru – warms the blood and hardens one’s will to continue. Never fear, I will persevere with this column. It’s a rum job (okay, technically it isn’t), but someone’s got to do it.
So what’s this week’s whisky? The Glenmorangie Original, and it’s a fine, fulvous nectar worth every penny of its £32 price tag.
Pop out the cork with a pleasing plonk, and slowly its aroma starts to escape the bottle. The malt’s complex nose is the richest smell outside of a fine perfumer. It’s so stunningly wonderful, you could spend a good half-hour trying to identify the various scents. There’s oranges and oak, peaches and cinnamon, ginger, lemon zest, mixed nuts, pine needles and honeycomb.
Then to the taste. First a strong lash of mellow oak, followed by lime and ginger. Next comes chilli heat; and a sharp, but not acrid, sensation stings the tongue and the roof of the mouth. Glenmorangie makes its presence known, but it isn’t unpleasant.
Just as you’re used to it, there’s a quick flash of heat – like a firework down the throat – igniting a smouldering charcoal fire deep inside of you that permeates warmth throughout your bones.
What else can I say? Buy this whisky! That’s another column filed, and I hope you liked it. But if you didn’t, it’s because I felt under pressure to think up some puns. In other words: it’s not my malt if it’s a scotchpotch. I’ll get my coat. ?