Mortlach 2003, 11 Year Old, Van Wees The Ultimate (Cask 800209)

There are some benefits to having children - these late nights (or rather conjoined days) of the last few days since the birth of my second son have tossed up some quality drinking time. And with no work to go to in the morning for the next couple of weeks - aside, obviously, from that work arising out of the needs and wanton destruction of my own flesh and blood - a rather carefree and cavalier approach to my usual (self-imposed) strict weekday drinking quota has taken hold. Long may it prosper.

Mortlach 2003, 11 Year Old, Van Wees The Ultimate 46% (Cask 800209)

Nose: Spiced fruits. Light malt. It's all fairly restrained though. After being open for a while, the fruit develops a very white wine-like quality. Water further releases some lovely bourbon fruits along with a hint of vanilla.

Palate: There's this strange, but not unpleasant, white wine (chardonnay to be exact) fruitiness and nuttiness going on. Time brings out some nice ripe stonefruit, vanilla and spice. Smoke. Water frees up the fruit again, and resolves some of those those white wine notes just a little.

Finish: Relatively long and smoky. A spiciness rises in the tail, and wraps around the smoke along with some wood bitterness. Water keeps it a touch sweeter perhaps as the peach notes linger, while broadening the finish somewhat as well.

A lovely whisky. Not complex or massive, just delicious to drink and really enjoyable to spend some time with. I guess the white wine-like notes are technically faults, but I'm willing and happy to consider them as providing additional character.

This was about 35 Euro from whiskybase - crazy cheap and fantastic value, particularly in an Australian context where, under the current regime of spirit duty and taxes, any sense of original value simply evaporates.

Good on van Wees for providing such a great value malt, amongst, it seems and must be said, a plethora of other such releases.