When you think of whisky, you’ll probably think of rugged Scottish highlands, witchy Irish woods, huge barrels, rickhouses, powerful old men making corrupt deals in a fancy office, and tweed. What probably won’t come to mind is an Emmy-nominated composer, a cello, and a bespoke music track that mimics the tasting notes of the dram.
But that’s exactly what Glendornach has done. The track, entitled Valley of the Brambles, incorporates sounds that can be found within the whisky-making process. The idea is that it will explore the long, deep-rooted connection between taste and sound.
It’s a very elevated version of how everything tastes better outdoors - think: ice cold beer in a beach bar in Greece, sort of beats a lukewarm beer in your kitchen on a Wednesday as it’s raining outside.
We’re down for films having scores, but whisky? It feels like when you buy a bottle of booze that comes with a gold crown or a seriously fancy thermal-lined jacket, which could be sold separately in Baby Gap.
Despite our classical musical knowledge peaking at GCSE level (bar the odd replay of some Ludovico Einaudi to add a bit of drama to our weekend housework), we decided to listen to the track completely blind, and see if we could guess what the whisky’s tasting notes would be, just from the music.
The first minute
The music is slow, traditional, and slowly builds, adding in one or two different layers that all work with one another. It seems to be building anticipation.
On the nose
We’re imagining this means that on the nose, the whisky is smooth, and gently builds adding in similar layers of tasting notes. Maybe you start off with a traditional base - something smooth and rich like an aged oak cask bringing in base notes of caramel or toffee.
Two minutes in
The music suddenly gets very playful, adding in pizzicato strings on top of the existing base. This fairly sudden change in tempo continues with the music speeding up.
It then quickly strips back to a mono-rhythm. The melody slowly comes back in building on this base; it almost sounds like water, the gentle flow of a uniform sound which has multiple different pockets of speed happening underneath.
On the palette
This is where we’d imagine the whisky builds to its flavour peak, bursting with the strongest tasting notes. As the music is a lot lighter in mood - almost playful - we’d imagine a fresh fruit flavour, with lots more different flavours coming through. We’d expect a tart, fresh flavour, probably coming from tasting notes of tropical fruits, pineapple, perhaps berries and currants, even a pear, possibly.
These flavours will probably be coming in from the whisky's main cask, which we reckon would be an Oloroso or a Pedro Ximenéz Sherry cask. But maybe we're just being swayed by the pizzicato string, which makes us think of tapas.
Three minutes in
It might just be us, but it feels like a classic nod to Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill at 2:49 - imagine a violin rendition of the chorus. All to say, the music fades a little, becoming simpler, almost mimicking the opening but keeping the pace of the previous part. Is this the ternary structure that our music teacher was always telling us about?
It becomes polyrhythmic, with different riffs and ostinatos playing different times (but all in the same key), building back up once again, ever so slightly different than before. The different motifs increase the pace and intensity whilst retaining the light and dark of the two previous minutes.
The second sip
This suggests that the whisky continues in layers as waves of flavours come through individually, all unique but working in harmony. We’d guess the opening, rich flavours - possibly caramel and toffee - deepen, perhaps building to a deeper leather and lighter honey which balance out before mellowing out.
Perhaps this suggests that there is even a subtle hint of a new flavour, which is almost a by-product of the others but is still unique. We’d imagine this is something like a nutty flavour, like a hazelnut. A new flavour that enhances the others.
As it closes
As the piece draws to a close, all the different parts - the ternary structure (ABA) ends, uniting the different motifs, and almost returning to the original, simple opening melody. It’s a gentle but quietly triumphant close.
The finish
In whisky terms, this probably means that the finish is a gentle but still punchy, uniting the strongest tasting notes that linger on the palette. You're probably left with a rich, sweet, and deep finish, a honey and leather finish.
How much did we get right?
It almost felt like a reward for writing what felt like a GCSE English Lit essay, but one that was analysing a piece of music instead of a Carol Ann Duffy poem. But unlike our GCSEs, the end of which were celebrated with a barbecue and writing in felt markers on each other's school shirts, we were rewarded by (and actually had to in the name of journalistic integrity) trying the whisky itself.
At first glance, it has a deep amber colour - not as dark as you'd get in an Ex bourbon or marsala cask, but not as light as you might get in a sauternes. Whilst we'd love to be mysterious, the bottle quite clearly marks that it was matured in Sherry casks, so at least that was one initial point to us for getting that part right.
On the nose, it's sweet and rich, with definite notes of dried fruit, but a driving aroma of leather. However, it definitely has a lot more layers to it just on the nose than we'd expected from the music.
It's strong on the palate, coming through with a punch that comes from Sherry casks. Notes of an autumnal, caramelised fruit - orange and sultana. There is a gentle warmth that slowly rises, bringing out the sweeter notes. The finish is - surprisingly - nutty (or maybe it really is the placebo effect of our musical analysis blinding our taste buds). It is mellow and velvety to finish, the sweetness receding a little to bring out that softness, balanced out by the darker, more gingerbread tones.
All in all? If there was a whisky-taste-assessing-just-from-bespoke-music job or challenge, we reckon we'd ace it. Oh, and the whisky isn't bad either
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