The 5pm Dining blog is not going to pretend that it never finds itself with a dram in hand come midnight.
][2]However, it’s not often that we find ourselves heading out for a new whisky launch at midnight on a school night.
Still, that’s the way they roll at anCnoc and if the Knockdhu distillery wants to unveil their latest peated malt at midnight on a Sunday, we will be there.
Cutter released
In fact, we were there, in the dim candlelight of Edinburgh’s Last Word Saloon as the clock struck midnight and the Cutter whisky was released.
Regular readers may recall that the 5pm Dining blog blethered about anCnoc’s previous peated malt releases earlier this year. Named after peat-cutting tools, Rutter, Flaughter and Tushkar were released in April.
Bottled at 46%ABV, the new release is named after a hand tool used to cut peat from less wet, shallower bogs. Apparently (we’re not hugely au fait with peat-cutting techniques), the peat thus produced is drier and more easily burnt, helping to make a whisky with a heavy smokiness – around 20.5 phenol parts per million in the case of the Cutter whisky.
Non chill filtered
Neither chill filtered nor coloured, Cutter is the most peated of anCnoc’s single malts to date. These are the official tasting notes:
‘Light gold in appearance, it has an intense, thick and oily smoke structure on the nose which reveals a sharper, more medicinal phenolic layer with a piercing burst of fruity ripe peaches and just a touch of oak. It has an ashy taste, with slight apple-core bitterness and notes of leather and spicy vanilla lingering at the back, accompanied by sharper notes of pink grapefruit and ripe orchard fruits. A long, elegant finish brings a kaleidoscope of spicy and peaty notes that die out with a juicy burst and a loud call for another sip.’
One thing the 5pm Dining blog is not good at is writing tasting notes. But we know people who are. You can see what the good people at the Whisky corner blog thought of the Cutter here.
Cutter is now available online and in specialist and independent UK whisky retailers at a rrp of £52.
Dark and mysterious
The distiller plans to launch a new peated expression of anCnoc every year on 1st September. They are threatening to make it an annual, midnight celebration of anCnoc’s ‘dark and mysterious side’.
The 5pm Dining blog will start building its Zzzz reserves now.