The Toshan Man

Incognito

Malts of Scotland has bottled quite a few beautiful Auchentoshan – and also one ugly monster, but let’s not go there – so I was pleasantly surprised when they announced this Toshan from 2000 early this year. It was bottled at cask strength – obviously – but did get a finish on a Marsala wine cask. Marsala is a fortified wine from Italy, more precisely from Marsala (doh!) on Sicily. This wine is ‘raised’ via the so-called solera-system, in the same way as they do with sherry. I wonder what this will have done with that light, triple distilled spirit of Auchentoshan.

I was a tad worried with the first sniff, because I got quite a bit of rubber, but it evaporated so fast that I wonder if it was just my imagination. The second time I put my nose in the glass, this was replaced by wonderfully sweet notes of cherries, chocolate, blood orange peel and some sniffing tobacco. After breathing for a while some Turkish Delight emerges. Very pleasant and lovely, but it has to be said: I would not have recognized Auchentoshan if tasted blind.

It is creamy and sweet, mildly prickly and immediately shows some cloves, saffron and curcuma. Yes, spicy lad. The sweetness – next to some nice earthy notes – translates into cherries and oranges. This is special and very good, but again: the distillery remains incognito.

The finish is very long, spicy and sweet.

The distillery character is completely taken over by the Marsala, but it is still a very lovely dram. Atypical, but wonderful. Around 100 EUR. Thanks, Billy!