PARCHED | GLENMORANGIE BACALTA

The Glenmorangie Bacalta has just been released, here’s what you need to know about it.

The Glenmorangie Bacalta is first matured in bourbon casks and then extra-matured in casks baked under the sun that were once filled with Malmsey Madeira – the sweetest of all Madeira wines.

‘Bacalta’ is Scots Gaelic for ‘baked’. (Not this kind of baked).

It’s an uncommon wood finish, for sure, which subsequently gives the single malt its inviting and intriguing aromas of apricots, honey, minerals and fruits. (This is the eighth in its annual series of Private Edition bottlings using unusual casks).

Then you’ll taste fruity flavours and layers of sweet complexity: caramel, orange, honeycomb, almonds, grapes – a garden of delights, like a walk in autumn through a fruit farm.

glenmorangie bacalta

Bacalta, according to Dr Bill Lumsden, Glenmorangie’s director of distilling, whisky creation and whisky stocks, is inspired by Glenmorangie’s old Madeira Wood Finish, claimed as the first whisky of that type but discontinued in 2004.

“This one… grew out of frustration with the old Madeira Wood Finish,” Lumsden explains in ScotchWhisky.com. “I loved it, but it was extremely variable in terms of quality, and eventually I had to discontinue it. I couldn’t get the right quality barrels in the numbers I was looking for.” (Glenmorangie Madeira Wood Finish left the range, to be replaced by the Sauternes-finished Nectar d’Or.)

[Glenmorangie Lasanta is awarded Best Highland Single Malt at World Whiskies Awards 2017 ]

How bespoke is this? The company had to source a winery on Madeira that was willing to fill the casks with sweet Malmsey wine that would never be bottled, but discarded afterwards. Not something you’d find on Craigslist obvs.

It’s roughly a 10-year-old whisky. The Bacalta is essentially the Glenmorangie Original that has spent its last two years in ex-Madeira casks. The result is a sweet bit of sunshine that you don’t often get in Scotland.

Like this? Ardbeg has sent whisky into space in the name of science

Save