Glenmorangie Taghta – Crowdsourced Whisky 21st Century Style – Whisky Tasting Notes

In Gaelic, taghta means “the chosen”, and they mean chosen by the people.

It started out by Dr. Bill Lumsden choosing three casks: Grand Cru Burgundy, Grand Cru Bordeaux and Manzanilla sherry, opening a website with Bill Lumsden’s video tasting notes for the “Glenmorangie Cask Masters”, which is the distillery’s official fan club and membership is open to all to vote. Overwhenlmingly, cask C was chosen – and Manzanilla sherry it is. Here’s Bill’s Cask C video.

(you can watch the videos for Cask A and Cask B using the links)

The next stage was the name. Dr. Aonghas MacCoinnich, is a professor of Celtic and Gaelic, and he suggested three names: Salain (sea salt), Taghta (chosen) and Coileanta (mastery). You know which way that went 🙂

Then came the label design, allowing Cask Masters to choose among three labels, the middle one getting the final nod:

Photo Credit: whiskykennis.nl

The final, and least interesting stage, was the chosen location for the launch of the whisky, at the distillery itself in Tain. I’ll tell you that Tel-Aviv, while suggested, did not make it to the finals 🙂 It’s worth noting that the Taghta isn’t part of the Private Edition series. The next whisky in that series is called the Tusail and is made of Maris Otter Barley, coming soon…

Photo Credit: whiskyledger.com

OK…enough history…let’s get to the drink itself

Glenmorangie Taghta (46% ABV, NCF, NC)

Appearance: Bronze, thick and sluggish legs.

Nose: Clearly Glenmorangie spirit, with the tart fruity Manzanilla with honey and spring flowers. The tartness dissipates leaving a classic Glenmo with cooked clove and wood spices.

Palate: Tart, spicy and somewhat bitter, with oak and some charred notes (not smoke, though). The palate is different than what the nose suggests.

Linger: Long but not very strong, bitter and sour notes (think yum!) with grapefruit rind, pepper and some wood.

Conclusion

This is a very enjoyable dram, although I think this one would have been a real classic at cask strength. The Manzanilla sherry works very well. Not quite on par with the Astar (also a Limited Edition), but excellent.

I’ll finish with a small rant:
Phil Thompson (of Dornoch Castle fame) posted this in the MM&F group on Facebook. My only comment will be a very loud slapping #facepalm…