Tormore 20yo
Gordon & MacPhail Connoisseur’s Choice | 55.8% ABV
Score: 9/10
Exceptional.
TL;DR
Bright, fizzy, zesty, malty, nutty, citrusy goodness
Long Live our Brick-and-Mortars
I had no intention of buying whisky on this particular day.
Two weeks prior, I’d been cleaning the kids play room and found a mysterious porcelain-looking white shard on the floor. Picking it up and inspecting it, I quickly realised one of my pups had broken a front tooth. After dashing upstairs and inspecting my younger pup, nothing was amiss. Alright, onto the old lady and sure enough, two front teeth had been broken in half.
By what, I have no idea. She is a tough cookie, very rarely showing any pain. After all, she’s split her skin on her orbital socket requiring stitches in her eyelid, dislocated her shoulder 5 times, and also had a full TPLO surgery (very similar to a full ACL tear in a human knee) on her hind leg, requiring a plate and full tendon reconstruction on her knee. Despite this complete severance of her knee tendon, she never complained once and kept wanting to go for walks, showing great pain tolerance.Oh and did I mention that she timed this blowout perfectly?
One week after our second child was born, this pup was fully laid out, requiring me to sleep on the couch and carry her up and down stairs for four weeks and listen to her needs as the drugs she was on were causing incontinence, requiring my constant attention. So yes, she’s a needy nutcase of an elderly Corgi.
So fast forward to returning from my latest business trip, I had to take her to the veterinarian to get these two stumps removed before they festered. Knowing a few vets via Mrs. Balfour, we used a new vet clinic to get the “friends and family” benefit to reduce the vet bill. Gotta do what you need to do these days! And very conveniently, this vet clinic was located very near a small, but well stocked, brick and mortar store called Sierra Springs Liquor. I visit this store around once a year - by pure happenstance - when I’m passing by.
In today’s day and age of incessant email offers, Instagram advertisements, and all-too-easy quick order buttons on every webpage, it’s easy to overlook brick-and-mortar stores. It means you need to physically leave the house, travel to a location, talk to people, and return sheepishly holding bottles of whiskies to your significant other after you’ve all but disclosed your little side trip by stating you are taking a detour or a “mental health break”. All terrible things, ya know? So what does a brick-and-mortar store have that online retailers don’t?
It’s the people, silly! Those manning the tills, the various other whisky folk craning or stooping their necks to cover every inch of the laden shelves, and of course, the samples. Many of the stores local to me here have several open bottles for you to try before you buy. Don’t want to take a punt on a complete bottle? Well maybe you won’t have to if you are able to try it beforehand, ensuring you are not parting with your hard earned money if you didn’t think it worthwhile.
Review
Tormore 20yo, Gordon & MacPhail, Connoisseur’s Choice Series, Refill sherry hogshead, Sierra Springs Exclusive Cask, 55.8% ABV
CAD$210 (£123) paid. Still some availability, store exclusive.
So here I was, with some time on hand after dropping my pup off for surgery that I wandered into Sierra Springs. After a brief chat with the staff, and I really truly do mean brief, did they not just ask if I would like to try some samples. Well of course I did!
Noticing how my eyes were wandering off the tall whisky shelves, they asked if I’d like to try this G&M Tormore. The price tag had initially made me hesitate, but after trying a sample, I knew that I should probably bring one home with me. Next up was a NAS Paul John peated Madeira (I think?) single cask that was all pineapple BBQ but didn’t pass my value proposition (more on that later), and an Arran single cask that was great as well.
So out I walked with a long sold out a 9yo Millstone Special #17 Moscatel (bringing my Millstone collection to 12 whiskies!), a refill of my favourite Boulder Bourbon, and two Sierra Springs exclusives: a 14 yo ex-bourbon Arran single cask. And of course this 20 yo G&M Tormore.
Well played brick-and-mortars, well played! If you didn’t pour a sample for me that day, I’m not sure I would’ve parted ways with a decent portion of my day’s paycheque.
Score: 9/10
Exceptional.
TL;DR
Bright, fizzy, zesty, malty, nutty, citrusy goodness
Nose
Bags of oranges in syrup jump out of the glass, detectable from 8” away from the glass. Light touch of maltiness. There’s a clean freshness like a spring breeze with flowers and morning dew. Then the oranges come back around and don’t let go. Some baking spices appear with time in the glass, combining with the orange notes to form a spiced orange loaf from a bundt pan from my childhood. The syrupy notes take the forefront after 15-20 minutes in the glass.
Palate
Soft, gentle, and sweet entry. While the nose was very much ex-bourbon American oak-like, the palate has some light sherry tones with a mild but distinct nuttiness. The oranges and syrup translate from the nose. Wonderful. Dark toffee hides underneath, providing opposition to the bright and sweeter notes. Barest touch of floral white pepper again providing more balance to the sweet notes. After some time and a few sips, hot chocolate powder and orange zest appear hiding under the sweetness and are very pronounced on retronasal. It is surprisingly textural and oily. The finish is long and tenacious, with orange oil, a nutty toffee, and white pepper tingles delicately trail off before a maltiness, not unlike a Malteser candy, pops up after a few minutes.
The Dregs
I might have to get another bottle of this.
It’s bright, fizzy, zesty, malty, nutty, citrusy goodness. Overall, the nose is very expressive and the palate is incredibly balanced and full of surprises. I’m excited to see what this bottle does when it gets down to the halfway mark. Could be in for another surprise!
Now for the score. I’ll be honest, if we did half points, this would be an 8.5.
But… you’ve gotta factor in the price, as we always do here at Dramface. This is a 20 yo cask strength malt whisky for $210 (£123), all in. This isn’t a 4-5yo Raasay at $100, a 8 yo Caol Ila for $150, $175 Lagavulin 16 at a paltry 43 %ABV, or any other combination of frivolity that seems to be the norm these days.
Yes it’s true, the cost of this whisky is nothing to sneeze at, but when you consider the quality and the price balance, it’s a no brainer. I personally have a handy Excel/Google Sheets calculator for equating price, volume, %ABV, and age against benchmark whiskies that I enjoy or rank high for me.
This value ratio is simple enough to implement, as shown below. It’s not perfect nor does it represent all factors that could be used to determine value, but it’s what works for me. A higher value ratio, as defined by me, means that the “specs” of the whisky are quite good for the price, and if the flavours are good as well, then it is a great buy! In general, the value ratio increases with a higher %ABV (ie., you’re getting more alcohol and flavour rather than paying for water), increases with older whiskies, and decreases if a smaller size bottle is used (e.g., 50 cL) for a fixed price.
The great thing is that I keep this sheet on the cloud, so whether I’m on the computer or in a brick-and-mortar store, I can easily enter a whiskies details and compare against some “preset” value ratios that I’ve got saved in the sheet. Things like an Arran 10 (ratio of 0.16), Ardbeg Uigeadail (0.10), Tomatin 18 yo (0.12), among others.
This lovely 20 yo Tormore clocks in at a ratio of 0.13, theoretically providing more value than an Ardbeg Oogie and very similar value proposition to my 9/10 scoring Tomatin 18.
When I “ran the numbers” while perusing the shelves in Sierra Springs, and after tasting the sample pour, I knew I had to have it. Going back to my poke at the tsunami wave of steeply priced young releases from new distilleries for a second; if we assume it’s 4yo whisky in the bottle, the value ratio is a paltry 0.05! Now obviously my numerical metric ignores the flavour vs. price comparison but it at least establishes a baseline value proposition when considering a whisky from which you have no experience.
So yes, in this case based on the value ratio, this gets the honorary round-up to a 9/10. It’s damn good stuff.
And long live brick-and-mortar stores for without you, a crucial piece of our whisky fabric would be missing, a fulcrum point for local whisky communities. If you’ve got an enthusiast-geared brick-and-mortar near you, please consider spending the extra fiver or tenner over the bulk bottom-dollar chasing online retailers.
These stores need your patronage and provide experiences that cannot be digitally replicated, such as actually tasting some whiskies beforehand, potentially saving you much more than the few dollars/quid you might be saving by purchasing online.
My paycheque knows I’ll be visiting Sierra Springs more often.
Score: 9/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. BB
-
Dramface is free.
Its fierce independence and community-focused content is funded by that same community. We don’t do ads, sponsorships or paid-for content. If you like what we do you can support us by becoming a Dramface member for the price of a magazine.
However, if you’ve found a particular article valuable, you also have the option to make a direct donation to the writer, here: buy me a dram - you’d make their day. Thank you.
For more on Dramface and our funding read our about page here.
