NÁDURRA

A relatively new bottling from Glenlivet distillery, Nádurra, is 16 years old and bottled at cask strength. It’s as close as you’ll get to sipping the real stuff in a windswept Glenlivet warehouse and it’s a delightful, complex and muscular dram balanced with delicious honey character. The bottling I sampled came in at 57.2% abv and I didn’t need to add water to the whisky-- unusual for cask strength drams which are typically fiery and hot.

The whisky is aged in first-fill American oak casks, meaning their previous occupant was a sweet Kentucky Bourbon or a Tennessee whiskey. The spirit’s host shows through in the whisky, with delightful notes of honey and spice, vanilla and toasted oak in the aroma and palate. It seems to have been bottled at the optimum age, too, with no jagged edges and a fine balanced complexity from beginning to end.

WHEN TO DRINK IT:
Nádurra will make a grand hiking whisky and a great Autumnal dram; serve it after Thanksgiving dinner or sip it at Fall sports games (as a spectator, of course, unless you’re a shinty player, in which case you can enjoy it at half-time during the Camanachd final.) It’s a whisky for a confident woman—one who knows her malt whisky and needs a dram to match her complexity. For real Highland sass, dab some Nádurra on your neck or anywhere else you wish, and head downtown…
Sip it while reading a history book or an autobiography, or listening to Capercaille's 'Nadurra' (of course!), Alison Krauss or Lyle Lovett (‘Joshua Judges Ruth’).

POINTS OF INTEREST: Nádurra is the Scottish Gaelic for ‘natural.’ Because it is unfiltered, the addition of water may cause the whisky to become cloudy. This is perfectly natural (sorry) and indicates how close you really are to those windswept Ladder Hills.

Tasting Notes: (Without water)
Colour: Rich gold
Nose: Sweet, spicy oak; honeysuckle, wild ginger and soft vanilla.
Taste: A layered, complex dram, beginning with wild honey and evolving through peaches, Braeburn apples, allspice, and vanilla oak.
Finish: Emphatic dry, oaky length, peppered with notes of spice and nuts.