Longmorn 1972 / Bot.2011 / Gordon & Macphail

Day Dream

My friend Bob came around and brought this bottle. He had received it a few years ago from friend for his birthday. It’s a Longmorn from his year of birth. The cask was bottled by Gordon & Macphail in their Reserve series, for the Dutch independent bottler van Wees. My god, will you look at that color. Bob was so generous to offer me a big sample to write these notes. Well, Bob, these are for you.

First off: leave it to breathe for a few minutes. Don’t forget that this has been kept imprisoned in a cask for almost 4 decades and then again a few years in the bottle. Give it some time and air: it will be worth your while!

The nose is a fantastic mix of red and dark fruit. Berries (both blue and red), raisins, blue plums, candied rhubarb, honey melon, Sirop de Liège, some earthy notes and even a hint of rubber – but that’s gone before you know it and soon replaced with something umami like a slice of fresh roast beef, mildly burnt caramel, humidor and varnish. It keeps evolving in the glass and give ‘complex’ a new definition.

On the palate I get a wonderful fruitiness of all kinds of dark fruits like on the nose on the one hand, but on the other the old school character shines through very nicely. Some freshly polished leather, mocha, blood oranges, chewing tobacco and orangettes. I am in the rare books department of Edinburgh’s library. It becomes very quiet around me. Through the windows I see the autumn ripping the last gold and brown colored leaves of the twigs, while the wind whistles along the high paned windows.

The wonderfully long, spicy finish on dark fruit, cherry liqueur and origin chocolate yanks me out of my day dream.

Wake me up before you go-go! This is the best Longmorn I have tried to date. My records say it is also my 30th Longmorn so far. Nice (yeah, my autistic side emerges). Thanks, Bob, for sharing this with me. What a majestic dram.

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