Really?

[Zanaspus]

I know trusting someone who wants to sell you something is never a good idea, but I think I've found a new extreme:

TASTING NOTES: courtesy of SILVANO SAMAROLI

Very penetrating refined bouquet.

Impetuous but at the same time clear.

Mature but lively.

Hard and also smooth, clean and at the same time ample.

Has great character. As deep as the ocean

Powerful – doesn’t pass unnoticed.

It would have been more elegant to just say, "It's everything to everyone."

I know (from his prices) that he's after the "collector" market, but really!?

[Yello to Mello]

Hmmm, vague yet precise. Abstract but real.....

[olikli]

There's nothing more entertaining than eloquently worded bullshit on a whisky bottle.

[mongo]

i wouldn't go that far.

[scotchio]

Pricy but inexpensive?

[Mr Tattie Heid]

Redundant yet redundant.

[orange_barnet]

I know trusting someone who wants to sell you something is never a good idea, but I think I've found a new extreme:

TASTING NOTES: courtesy of SILVANO SAMAROLI

....

Mature but lively.

....

Can't anyone relate to this?

[Mr Tattie Heid]

No, on both counts....

[MacDeffe]

I seldom read OFFICIAL tasting notes

It's written to sell a whisky, not describe it and/or meaningless gibberish

THis one is clearly the 2nd catagory

Steffen

[Aidan]

Tasting note without noting taste.

[Lawrence]

There's nothing more entertaining than eloquently worded bullshit on a whisky bottle.

[Jolly Toper]

Tall while still short, bald but remarkably hirsute, - just tell me if it's peaty or from a sherry cask...

[kallaskander]

Hi there,

I know trusting someone who wants to sell you something is never a good idea, but I think I've found a new extreme:

TASTING NOTES: courtesy of SILVANO SAMAROLI

....

Mature but lively.

....

Can't anyone relate to this?

very old but definitively not dead ?

But it is a mere 20 years old. I could have agreed to this description if it would describe a 30 or more years old Bunnie.
But in a 20 year long matured whisky you would expect spome liveliness.

Greetings
kallaskander

[Aidan]

On the other end of the scale...

Bruichladdich Octomore Comus
Nose: The opening is a beautiful combination of peat smoke, bracken, leather, tobacco pouches, bog myrtle & briny waves. Then, little twists of mint toffee enter the system as do the nutty oak notes – both French and American. And so the dance goes on, but where is the French beauty? She waits patiently on the fringes then, at exactly the right moment, she makes her entrance from the epicentre of the spirit, bringing aromatics and flavour the young Ileach can only dream of. From deep in her soul she commits to this amazing relationship, the aromatics relay the message to the waiting taste buds to expect a whole new experience: the raisiny botrytis of the Premier Cru Superieur Sauternes. Its flavours - pear syrup, apricot, candied fruit, guava, passion and citrus fruits leached from the wood. You have to wonder just how surreal this is - a massively peated beast being seduced by a delectably sweet, French beauty – passion changes everything.
Palate: It’s supernatural. The taster is taken on an incredible journey of discovery, the coming together of flavours so far removed from each other you would think it would be a disaster. The kaleidoscope of aromatics transcends beautifully onto the palate which is going crazy with excitement: a new sensory solar system.

I hope it's okay to reproduce this here. I've cut out a lot of it.

[Nick Brown]

Bruichladdich Octomore Comus
Nose: ... so the dance goes on, but where is the French beauty? She waits patiently on the fringes then, at exactly the right moment, she makes her entrance from the epicentre of the spirit, bringing aromatics and flavour the young Ileach can only dream of...

Presumably they know that an epicentre is a point on the Earth's surface nearest to the origin of an earthquake.

Palate: It’s supernatural.

It may be super. It may be natural. But unless it is a werewolf, it is unlikely to be supernatural.

The kaleidoscope of aromatics transcends beautifully onto the palate which is going crazy with excitement: a new sensory solar system.

But this, surely, is the mixed metaphor to end all mixed metaphors.

[Aidan]

Somewhere along the road the ship came off the rails.

[Douglas]

Somewhere along the road the ship came off the rails.

[whiskytime]

Sounds like a personals ad... if you need a man/woman, penetrating/refined, etc./etc. here I am!

[solera]

Tasting note without noting taste.

Brilliant!

[kallaskander]

Hi there,

regarding Comus and other whiskies from Bruichladdich...

I tend to see the tasting notes - of which I think Jim McEwan writes them -

as poems or even odes to a whisky. A bit overdone sometimes but real works of art.

With the freedom of the poet taken to its limits sometimes, that's true.

Greetings
kallaskander

[orange_barnet]

Hi there,

regarding Comus and other whiskies from Bruichladdich...

I tend to see the tasting notes - of which I think Jim McEwan writes them -

as poems or even odes to a whisky. A bit overdone sometimes but real works of art.

With the freedom of the poet taken to its limits sometimes, that's true.

Greetings
kallaskander

I agree that tasting notes can be wonderfully 'poetic', entertaining and interesting to read - peppered with onomatopoeia, loaded with hyperbole, sometimes with a plain confusing oxymoron thrown in, and often with the use of similes to paint a picture of the experience to come.

Sometimes tasting notes might even give you a very good indication of how the whisky will taste, but also in my experience they can equally be misleading. But this isn't necessarily a 'problem' - after all everyone's experience of a whisky is personal, and so therefore are the tasting notes. Like whisky, notes are fun for sharing.

[Aidan]

Hi there,

regarding Comus and other whiskies from Bruichladdich...

I tend to see the tasting notes - of which I think Jim McEwan writes them -

as poems or even odes to a whisky. A bit overdone sometimes but real works of art.

With the freedom of the poet taken to its limits sometimes, that's true.

Greetings
kallaskander

I agree that tasting notes can be wonderfully 'poetic', entertaining and interesting to read - peppered with onomatopoeia, loaded with hyperbole, sometimes with a plain confusing oxymoron thrown in, and often with the use of similes to paint a picture of the experience to come.

Sometimes tasting notes might even give you a very good indication of how the whisky will taste, but also in my experience they can equally be misleading. But this isn't necessarily a 'problem' - after all everyone's experience of a whisky is personal, and so therefore are the tasting notes. Like whisky, notes are fun for sharing.

Other times they're just mental, tough.

[kallaskander]

Hi there,

Other times they're just mental, tough.

the borderlines are fluid. True.

Greetings
kallaskander

[orange_barnet]

Hi there,

regarding Comus and other whiskies from Bruichladdich...

I tend to see the tasting notes - of which I think Jim McEwan writes them -

as poems or even odes to a whisky. A bit overdone sometimes but real works of art.

With the freedom of the poet taken to its limits sometimes, that's true.

Greetings
kallaskander

I agree that tasting notes can be wonderfully 'poetic', entertaining and interesting to read - peppered with onomatopoeia, loaded with hyperbole, sometimes with a plain confusing oxymoron thrown in, and often with the use of similes to paint a picture of the experience to come.

Sometimes tasting notes might even give you a very good indication of how the whisky will taste, but also in my experience they can equally be misleading. But this isn't necessarily a 'problem' - after all everyone's experience of a whisky is personal, and so therefore are the tasting notes. Like whisky, notes are fun for sharing.

Other times they're just mental, tough.

True, there is a often fine line between genius and insanity.

[two-bit cowboy]

True, there is a often fine line between genius and insanity.

Ah, drizzle a little whisky on that line and you get Edgar Allan Poe (quoted in the publicity for Black Art 1989) or Jim McEwan.