The Glenmorangie Quinta Ruban (100 ml mondo mini)

Tasting notes: 
    Here at the Malt Impostor, we're not above--or below--the occasional pithy, direct, shot from a bow, sprung from a trap, lightning strike of an impression.  Upon the pouring of the dram into our Glencairn glasses, after the eddying swirl to volatilize the esters (Stephen:  Bill!  That's for wine!), it was agreed by all that the Quinta Ruban "smells so nice."
     After having our olfactory analytic circuits blown, we tilted, tippled, and tasted: a totalizing tang at the tip of the tongue.  A finish of maraschino oranges.  It indisputably was aged in port casks, and although we knew that going in, it became clear in a different way exactly what that meant: a veritable double consciousness of knowing something, but sort of not knowing, but simultaneously relishing it.  Confusing?  Well, I suppose so; after all, even single consciousness is confusing enough!
     Breaking the finish down more, it's like having your pet ferret Sally dipping into a plethora of different niches and slots, then including your sinuses on her grand tour of orifices.  The flavors are served up on a pine-needle dish, hand-painted by Seurat, who used a palette of pure awesomeness and a brush whose bristles are also pine needles.  It's the redolent aroma of a purified turpentine one would use in the restoration of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (and that the Chianti-sodden janitor would mistakenly use to clean the floor and lavs, too.)

Rating:

--On the scale of painterly artistic masterpieces--
The Glenmorangie Quinta Ruban is Picasso's "Family of Acrobats with Monkey"--It's sad, it's transcendent, it's from his Rose period, it's complicated, it evokes the Renaissance birth of Christ genre of sacred images, and it's got a monkey.  Here at the Malt Impostor, that's all we look for. Monkeys.

                                                                             --Bill