This "expression" of Glenmorangie is aged in Sauternes casks. Sauternes is a French dessert wine, made from white grapes, with a sweet and tart flavor. This bottling is a pale yellow-orange, with a syrupy consistency that clings to the glass.
On the nose, there's a lot of citrus and sweet flavors, primarily lemon custard, a hint of lime, caramel candy, and a malted vanilla milk shake. Instead of apple flavors like those that the Bunnahabhain 12 offers, on this one we get pear and coconut notes. It has a wonderful mouth feel, and a nice lingering heat on the palate, with a bit of of nutmeg but very light on the oak. On the finish it reminds me of a cinnamon and sugar donut, or an almond croissant.
Blended with a little water, it gets hotter and the creaminess backs off, revealing more orange, and the sweet notes become more like brown sugar and toffee. Try adding just a touch of water; I think it makes this one slightly better.
Overall, it's a very tasty beverage, but so oriented towards sweet flavors that it is pretty much exclusively a dessert drink. I wouldn't make it a regular dram for that reason and the flavors are enticing but not very deep or complex, and don't evolve on the mouth. I give it a 7.0.
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