Sunday 1 December 2019

Imperial 1989 Carn Mor [Road to #1000, Review #983]

Hi everyone,

Last year I was working a lot in Germany, which meant tasting a lot of cool German exclusives that are only released there. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to spend a lot of time there this year as I really like it there.
Despite being a closed distillery, Imperial was more affordable and pretty readily available when I first started in whisky. There were Signatory Cask Strength 1995’s for about £85 then.
Now it’s a different story but I know there are plenty of casks out there because I visited some warehouses of a certain independent bottler and they have racks of the stuff.

Imperial 1989 Carn Mor 44.7%
Colour: Light Gold
Body: Medium
Nose: Tropical fruit along with the classically Imperial dusty dunnage and leather, some pear, lemon peel, cigar box, green and red apple, particularly dusty this one. Oh, also beeswax.
Taste: Soft, dusty and old, leather, dunnage, then more fruity with red and green apple, some lemon, sour oak. Not as much complexity as I would have expected for almost 30yo.
Finish: Medium length. Very soft. Green apple, some lemon and dusty something?! Dust?
Bourbon barrel, bottled 2018 at 28yo as an exclusive for Schlumberger in Germany. Good but it is quite dusty. Perhaps too much. This dusty note is normally encounter with Glen Scotia so it’s interesting to see it here with Imperial. Not sure if it’s something coming from the spirit or cask but I might guess the cask in this case as it isn’t something I’ve had with an Imperial before or since.
75/100

Thanks for reading!

Scotch Review #825
Whisky Network Review #983

Network Average: 75.1
Best Score: 94
Worst Score: 12
0-49 Terrible
50-59 Bad
60-64 Just About OK
65-69 Ok to Good
70-74 Good
75-79 Very Good
80-84 Excellent
85-89 Superb
90+ Magnificent

Full Disclosure Disclaimer: I currently work as the Global Brand Ambassador for Penderyn Distillery. The views expressed here are purely my own and do not reflect the views of Penderyn Distillery or The Welsh Whisky Company. I try to maintain as much objectivity as I can but feel free to take my reviews with as big a pinch of salt as you like. Furthermore, my rating scale is NOT based on a Parker type wine scoring scale or a school/college/university % or A-F grade score. You can find more on my scoring here. I apologise for any seemly low or 'bad' scores given with my system and I am sorry I can't say only nice things. Please keep in mind that I am ethically compromised and I am unable to produce 100% unbiased reviews.

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