Glenmorangie Quinta Ruban - 12 Year Old

After reading the reviews of this whiskey, I almost wanted to get into the car and buy a bottle.  Even the name is appealing:  " Quinta Ruban".  But the reviews had "Charlie Browned" me before.  Cardhu and Edradour were both good, but not over the moon good like I had read in the reviews.  So I decided to wait.

Then, due to a snowstorm, I got unexpectantly stranded away from home for an extra night and hit the liquor store looking for this.

Glenmorangie makes a few of whiskeys of this type....Lasanta (The Christmas whiskey perhaps?), Nector D'Or, and Quinta Ruban.  Each is finished (extra matured) in a different cask. While Lasanta (Sherry casks) is also supposed to be quite good, Quinta Ruban, finished in Port casks, seemed to be particularly impressive.

This is very good whiskey.  Very very good.  Even my non scotch drinking friends liked it and rated it as one of the best of those that I had fed them.  It is a slightly sweet, but not a Speyside sweet - more like the difference between a sweet fruit and a mouthful of sugar.  It is just very, very tasty.  At 46% there is a bit of an alcohol bite, but it is still reasonably smooth.  This will definitely be my goto single malt for some time.  It ranks up there with the Bowmore Devil's Casks and Bowmore Wine Cask Matured, both of which were a one off limited edition whiskey that will not come again.  There is lots and lots of Quinta Ruban available.

Glenmorangie claims that it only uses casks twice, not repeatedly like some others do, and there is definitely quality to the whiskey.  It is a highland whiskey, coming from Tain, Scotland, just north of Inverness.  (The Speyside region is just east of Inverness.)

In any event, I am quite happy to find a great whiskey, costing about the same a Cardhu, but, to me, it is much, much superior.  Give it a try, and let me know what you think.