Origin: Speyside (Scotland)
Type: Single Malt Scotch Whisky
Strength: 51.2%ABV
Ageing cask: Ex-Sherry
Chillfiltered: No
Added coloruing: No
Owner: Whisky Facile
Average price: € 85.00
Official website: Whisky Facile
Vote: 84/100
When you have a passion so strong that it’s almost visceral, to the point where you can legitimately call yourself a nerd, two things mainly happen: the uncontrollable urge to share your passion and the desire to become its advocate in the first person.
All fans of cinema, comics, fiction or good food, those who not only enjoy their passion but also get informed, read, know the creative methods and names of those who make those creations, also love to talk about it, with other fans and with people who don’t know about the subject, trying to make them passionate in turn or to help them descend into the abyss to deepen their passion.
This is where bloggers on any aspect of human knowledge come from, and it also applies to those who love whisky, like the guys at Whisky Facile, who ten years ago inaugurated their blog expressing an informed yet light and passionate approach to the distillate, far from the idea of swamped criticism found in other areas.
At first it was just Jacopo Grosser and Giacomo Bombana, then other friends like Marco Zucchetti and Davide Ansalone joined in, and the rest, as they say, is history (and enlarged livers): you can read about it directly from their words on this page.
And here we come to the moment when you want to become an actor in your own passion.
Not being able to distil in person, having your name on a bottle containing a whisky you have chosen (and loved) is probably the dream of all of us who drink it, and to celebrate this tenth anniversary of one of the most important blogs in Italy (as well as the first in our country), here are three single casks selected by them in collaboration with well-known Italian bottlers, “A space whisky odyssey”, whose names (and labels) refer to Greek themes and mythology, with that search for evocative images that has always characterised their reviews.
Let’s start with Polyphemus, an Aultmore distilled in 2010 and poured into a Sherry butt where it rested for the first three years, then divided between two casks, one of which is a former Pedro Ximénez Sherry cask from Bodega Gonzalez Byass, which produced the 159 bottles of this edition at the end of 2020. Unadulterated and cask strength, the choice of this bottling came from several tastings of barrels kept by Morrison Distillers through Fabio Ermoli of Lost Dram.
Tasting notes
The nose is a curious mixture of sulphurous and sweet decadence, with notes of ripe fruit (cherries, strawberries, figs, dates, plums) veined with fleshy, metallic impressions, on which are grafted intense scents of sultanas in alcohol. Nutmeg and almonds punctuate the aromas, which find an acidic and vegetal pathway of balsamic vinegar and fresh oregano that clearly dilutes the initial sweet soul. Iridescent.
In the mouth, the convincing sherried aspect prevails, dark and sweet, but always with an underlying bitter streak to support a full-bodied dram, where the alcohol titillate the palate on the length. Red fruits, liquorice, dried orange peel, pine nuts, a handful of pepper and a nice salty splash that pushes you towards another sip. More decisive than on the nose, and perhaps for this reason less interesting.
The finish is quite long with bitter cacao, liquorice, orange and beeswax.
It is as much an untamed beast on the nose as it is a more classically PX on the palate, without ever lapsing into the banal or already seen, it knows how to entertain and amuse, and reserves pleasant surprises even at the end (especially when the glass is empty).
A bit like those who chose it…