Scotch Whisky Review #367: Glen Moray 15 Year Warehouse 1 Tokaji Finish (2005)

Distillery: Glen Moray.

Region: Speyside.

Age: 15 Year. Distilled on October 7th, 2005. Bottled in 2021.

ABV: 53.6% Cask Strength.

Color: 1.1, Burnished. Natural Color and Non-Chill Filtered.

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Nose: After a normal resting time, the nose is chock full of alcohol and it dominates everything. After leaving it out, covered, for a whole day to rest the alcohol does let up but it still quite strong. There’s so much alcohol wafting up that it’s the “take a whiff and it goes straight up your nose to whack your brain” levels of too much alcohol. There are some actual notes though, with a warm malt note leading the way. There’s a bit of earthiness as well. The back is all dominated by sweet white grapes and a very dessert wine note (which I imagine is tokaji).

Palate: After a normal resting time, it tasted of nothing but alcohol. After the much longer resting time, it has definitely mellowed out and much less hot than the nose is. The notes are the same and quite tasty: warm malt, some earthiness, and a dessert wine bomb. With some water, there’s no real change in notes other than the temperature dropping a bit.

Finish: Short in length. Something that tastes a lot like custard creams lingers briefly before vanishing.

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Conclusion: Glen Moray has never really impressed me but I’m always up for trying things in fun cask finishes. I’ve never had tokaji and know nothing about it other than it’s a Hungarian wine making region with a lot of sweet wines. My first sip of this after letting it rest a normal 10-15 minutes was pretty disappointing. The nose was so hot that I couldn’t smell it and the palate tasted of nothing but alcohol. I figured this whisky was destined for the drain but decided to let it sit out overnight to see if it improved at all. That seems to have been the right call. Even though there’s still a lot of alcohol floating around, letting it rest for a while revealed a really simple yet tasty dram. The nose and palate have a really delicious combination of warm malt, a bit of earthiness, and a whole lot of sweet wine. The finish, while really short, has a nice custard cream note as well. It’s quite tasty and I have to wonder if this is a bottle that would benefit with months of open time like some heavy sherry whiskies seem to. Would I buy a bottle? Maybe, though mostly out of curiosity to see if it does evolve into something more than what it is.

Final Score: 80.

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Scotch Whisky Review #367, Speyside Review #132, Whisky Network Review #521

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Scoring Legend:

• 96-100: The perfect dram, nectar of the gods.
• 90-95: Near perfect, there is something truly special about this whisky.
• 85-89: Amazing, will always try to keep a bottle of this in my collection (if feasible).
• 80-84: Very Good, maybe only one minor nitpick about the whisky keeping it here.
• 75-79: Good, quite enjoyable to drink.
• 70-74: Solid, wouldn’t go out of my way to get it.
• 60-69: Meh, still drinkable.
• Below 59: If you have a bottle of this, start cooking with it instead.