Glenmorangie Nectar D’Òr Scotch Whisky. Ok guys, this bottle holds a special place in my heart as this was the VERY first bottle of Scotch single malt whisky I owned.

Scotch whisky was one of the last major categories of liquor I developed a taste for, so with that noted, this was not love at first taste. I was quite meh about it given my struggles with Scotch (the peated stuff was my gateway to Scotch). It sat in my bar cabinet mostly untouched until about the past year. Today, as I enjoy my final drams of this special bottle, I am happy to say that damn, I (finally) really love this stuff.

Nectar D’Òr is a 12 year whisky. The first 10 years of its life is spent in an ex-bourbon cask, which becomes the classic Glenmorangie 10 (also love this stuff – perfect budget single malt for cocktails!). After this, it spends an extra 2 years in Sauternes sweet wine casks.

Sauternes wine is fascinating. It’s a sweet golden dessert wine from France exclusively made with grapes that are “infected” by a fungus called noble rot (appetizing, hm?) which partially dehydrates the grapes. Drying up the grapes concentrates the sugar in the fruit and adds some interesting flavor complexity through the chemical changes during the process. The wine is challenging and expensive to make, given the specific conditions necessary to harvest, the low yields, and the potential inconsistencies due to natural variations.

Sauternes wine imparts strong flavors of honey and stone fruit like apricot, which nicely find their way into this whisky. Sauternes wine finished whiskies aren’t very common, and this departure from the more-typical sherry finished whiskies (full of savory nutty notes and/or dried jammy red fruits) makes it a very unique dessert-worthy rich Scotch worth checking out!