Amrut Greedy Angels Chairman's Reserve 8 Year Old Single Malt Indian Whisky (700ml)

A bottling to celebrate the 60th birthday of Amrut's Chairman, Mr. Neel Jagdale. Amrut rarely age their whiskies for longer than four years. This represents some of the distillery's oldest stocks - a tricky undertaking given the greedy nature of India's angels where evaporation rates are around 10-15% annually, as opposed to 2% in a cooler climate such as Scotland. Apart from the dramatic loss (over 250 litres disappeared in this experiment), extended ageing means there's a risk that the spirit will breach a critical point beyond which it tastes overly woody. Produced from unpeated Indian barley & Scottish peated barley, 1350 bottles are on offer worldwide.

Tasting note: Bright amber. Resiny, shellac-like opening phase takes several minutes to blow off. Second pass finds a core of sweet barley and vanilla with fruit jam density. Third pass hints at kumquat paste, raw sugar and plantain. Saturates the mouth with a slow-motion wave of creamy malt and ripe mango. Delicate bittersweetness. The length is superb. Ends rich, satisfying, warming with flavours of cream tea biscuit and cough lozenge in the fade. Beautifully poised given its weight and ABV. 50% Alc./Vol.

Other reviews... A whopping three-quarters of the spirit put in these casks was taken by greedy angels. It has a big waft of crystallized pineapple, tropical fruits, and spiky spice on the nose. On the palate, red licorice, syrupy jellied fruits, some mandarin, cherry lozenge, and tinned strawberries, and the same menthol rancio you’d kill for in a 30 year old scotch. This is Amrut's oldest-ever whisky; it's as rare as hen's teeth…and just 8 years old. Awesome.
94 points - www.maltadvocate.com, reviewed by: Dominic Roskrow (Summer 2013)

...Matured in a cellar, luckily, but still has the hallmarks often seen on certain Speysiders in their late 30s....few noses have ever been better. It is certainly unsurpassed this year...worldwide. A true whisky great of the last decade.
96 points - Jim Murrays Whisky Bible 2017