fresh and green

we had a party this week to celebrate a wedding of friends, one of whom is from drinkdrankeat, and the bottles came out fast and furious.
among the bottles were a glenmorangie cellar 13, a laphroaig 10 year old, a macallan 12 year old, a johnnie walker black label 12 year old and a glenfarclas 12 year old.
not that we were single malt snobs but the black label was left untouched through the night.
so the ones that garnered the most attention were the laphroaig and the glenfarclas 12 year old, a speyside single malt with 43 percent alcohol by volume.
glenfarclas in the local gaelic lingo means valley of the green grass and the single malt itself is a pale and slightly greenish in hue, in keeping with the colour of most 12 year old whiskies.
the fruity, nutty and oaky notes in the bouquet give way to a peatish and still strong oaky palate with a short and spicy finish that leaves you hankering for more.
heck, it was the first bottle to dry up in the course of the night.
which left us with the rest of the bottles to finish up with the food at the jolly little restaurant called tanners in bukit tunku.
a discourse on dining at tanners will follow soon enough.

terrific talisker

from the scottish island of skye comes a single malt that is second to none. the talisker 18 years old.
i had more than my fair share of a couple of bottles this year and over the years, apart from imbibing some drams from the talisker 10 years old last year.
the good news is that the talisker 18 years old has just won the world whisky awards 2007 as the world's best single malt.
so there! it's that good.
the pink gold single malt with 45.8 percent alcohol by volume is sweet and fruity with a smoky and peppery finish.
my friends and i paired it with drunken prawns in penang a few months ago and enjoyed every drop of the single malt with its long spicy and rather peaty finish.
if there is any 18 years old single malt that one must try to ever taste in one's life, the talisker 18 years old would have to be it.
superb. terrific! that would be the only words for it.
and if you cannot get your hands on this single malt - available in duty-free shops in heathrow, suvarnabhumi and changi airports - get a taste of it from from either the johnnie walker green label 15 year old pure malt or drambuie as it is one of the components in both those blends.