Dalmore 8 Year Old 2009 for Taiwan

My friend Joseph from Taiwan, president of the Connoisseur Society there, regularly selects single casks. This is one from the warehouses of Ian MacLeod: a young Dalmore from 2009 that was bottled at cask strength in 2018. Beautiful label, by the way. But I cannot read anything on the back label. It’s Chinese to me – literally.

Very inviting nose on sweet malt with vanilla, oranges zest and apricot pastry. While clearly a sherry cask, this is very light and accessible and has a surprisingly salty edge to boot. This is good! And do yourself a favor: leave it to breathe for a full five minutes. Then it becomes sweeter still on stout beer and candied sugar. Excellent!

The body is pretty oily, almost creamy – unexpected but welcome. Again a truckload of oranges, but now with a wonderfully spicy edge of chili peppers and cloves. Apricots are present. Brown tasted smothered in a mildly bitter orange marmalade, dark beer and pear syrup. Slowly but surely turns into a liquid dessert. And it absolutely does not need any water.

The finish is long, very long in fact. Mildly drying with rye bread at the death.

Congrats Joseph, great cask selection! Very happy that you were able to get me this, thanks!

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