Glenmorangie 19 Year Old breaks tradition

Dr. Bill Lumsden is at it again. The director of whiskey creation for the Scottish distiller on Tuesday announced the launch of Glenmorangie Ealanta, the latest addition to its "Private Edition" range.

Ealanta -- Scots Gaelic for "skilled and ingenious" -- is a 19 Years Old Glenmorangie, matured in virgin American white oak casks from the Mark Twain National Forest in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri. (Go here for a visit Lumsden and I paid to that area several years ago as I followed the "wood trail" for whiskey again.)

"It's no secret in our industry that it's the wood that makes the whisky," Lumsden said, "and for many years my team and I have been carrying out detailed research in this area."

Glenmorangie typically employs used whiskey barrels to age its whiskies, so the use of new white oak casks is a different approach.

"The interaction of our elegant spirit from our very tall stills directly with this virgin wood makes for many intriguing flavors," Lumsden said. "Using virgin oak casks that have been heavily toasted adds huge mouth-filling, buttery, creamy, vanilla flavors -- somewhat like a creme brulee topped with almond and marzipan. This makes for a lovely rounded and complex expression of Glenmorangie. New wood also imparts a purity of flavor that I think many Glenmorangie aficionados will find an interesting divergence from our previous Private Edition releases."

Glenmorangie Ealanta is bottled at a strength of 46% alcohol by volume (92 proof) and is non chill-filtered. It will be available in limited quantities in the U.S. market. The distiller did release a suggested retail price. However, it is priced at 99.95 Euros, which converts to $132 in U.S. currency.