Well, apparently I am rather doomed to fail in this competition. Yesterday I went out for dinner and therefore I had tasted the sample the night before. Filled in my uneducated guess nicely before going out but apparently my distillery choice hadn’t been saved. Luckily the guys in the club noticed 3 minutes before I had to fill it out and they called me to get my guess.

Sniff:

Imperial 12 – Gordon & MacPhail (Image from Whiskybase)

Thick beefy sherry with some leather, chocolate and a little fruit in the background. Sour cherries with heavy sherry flavours. Stewed apricots and peaches, some cloves but also sweet orange and lemon curd.

Sip:
It definetly reminds me of old Macallan with a mix of their 1960s and 1970s style. The first being heavily sherried and leathery, the second more in the area of sherry, Cap Corse, sweet orange, blood orange and hints of lemon curd. So stewed fruits, rather a lot of wood, lots of cloves.

Swallow:
I really keep getting Cap Corse. Sweet fortified wine, with orange and spices. Wood and orange with some spicy notes too.

My guess went to some random indie Macallan, around 18 years old and at about 53 to 55 % ABV. I could be more wrong, but not by much since it turned out to be a 12 year old Imperial at 62.7%. I really didn’t pick up on the alcohol level and it tasted a lot more sophisticated than you would expect from a rather young, really high strength thingy.

My guess more or less automatically implicates that I really liked this bottling and it’s something that I’m keeping my eye out for! I saw it costs around € 62 which is very affordable too!