Boozehound Unfiltered: Glenmorangie Nectar d'Or

It's been a while since I've dipped into the Glenmorangie range. I know I've had the Quinta Ruban but I

cannot for the life of me recall whether I've ever tasted the sweet goodness of the Nectar d'Or.  A quick check of the archives of this iteration of my blog reveals that I have not reviewed it since at least 2016. A quick check of my former (now retired) blog reveals that I have reviewed the Glenmorangie La Santa before. So this is shiny, it's new and man, it's delicious.

In the world of single malts- I really do like Glenmorangie. Glenfiddich is widely available locally as well. I'll admit this: it's been a while, thanks to COVID since I've had the pleasure of hanging out with fans of single malt. But my experience is that a lot of them tend to love Islays. I love an Islay now and again- and while the beer metaphor may be inaccurate when it comes to the world of single malt- but if you don't want to sip on the whiskey equivalent of a high-end IPA and want something else, the Glenmorangie Range is a good place to start.

I don't know if I'm ready to call it 'my brand' but if I was forced to pick a brand, I'd be hard-pressed to pick anything else. (Which probably more or less makes it 'my brand.')

Let's start with the website- and keep in mind, they're trying to sell you this stuff, so the language is going to be a bit extra, shall we say, but, "Step into the pastry shop's sweet whirl" it proclaims:

This whisky was born from the memory of entering a pastry shop for the very first time. It's about that first moment of finding your senses deliciously overwhelmed, breathing in the sweet scents, and wishing you could take a bite of every creamy, flaky, treat you see. In Nectar d'Or you can taste it all. To create it, we take the delicate, fruity spirit of our giraffe-high stills and age it in American oak bourbon casks along with casks that once held Sauternes sweet white wine. The outcome is like a silky dessert-filled daydream of white chocolate swirled with lemon cream, creme caramel, almond croissants... all balanced by a soft drumbeat of spice. Each sip is like sending your senses on holiday to a French patisserie.

Wow. Okay...  can't say I had that experience, but I can report that this (unsurprisingly) is an excellent whiskey. Here's my sketch-ass excuse for tasting notes:

Color: Gold-- it doesn't have that deep dark, amber color that usually implies that something rich and fruity is about to hit your tastebuds. It also doesn't have that pale gold/straw/honey thing going on that usually means you're going to be dealing with a delicate beauty of a whisky. This one is just nice, solid, gold.

Nose: It took me so long to get this... I think Glenmorangie's tasting notes might talk a lot about dates and figs-- but what I settled on was smooth caramel. It didn't seem like it was enough to be vanilla and it wasn't totally caramel either- but if you think of it like Werther's-- nice, creamy caramel was what I took away from this. 

Body: Really nice viscosity here. If there was a whisky that could be perfectly balanced, it might just be this one. There's a nice spicy bite as well- it's not harsh, it's spicy. That's hard to achieve, in my opinion- spicy can equal harshness in a lot of cases- but getting spice? Hard to do. So good job. 

Finish: Pleasant. That's the only way to describe it-- the warming isn't harsh. It's nice and gradual. Just... pleasant

Overall: Smooth, delicious, and excellent... I can't really say much more than that. Just a great, great single malt. My Grade: A- Great, but not, I think life-changing level of great.