Enigma is one of the travel-retail exclusives that have become a standard tool in the larger distilleries' commercial kit. Bottled at a robust cask strength and offered without an age statement, it gives The Glenlivet at something close to its natural weight — rather fuller and more assertive than the gentle introductions to the brand found on supermarket shelves.
The distillery sits in the Livet glen in Speyside, drawing its water from Josie's Well on the estate. Its fame rests partly on George Smith's 1824 decision to take out the first legal licence in the parish, and partly on the fact that in the nineteenth century the name 'Glenlivet' was so admired that dozens of neighbouring distilleries appended it to their own. A court judgment in 1884 eventually confined the unmodified definite article to Smith's distillery alone.
Enigma itself benefits enormously from the higher strength. The orchard-fruit signature becomes denser and more resinous, honey turns to marmalade, and the oak asserts itself without dominating. A little water, added judiciously, opens it further into baked apple and pastry. This is The Glenlivet speaking at full volume — an instructive dram for anyone who has only met the distillery at forty per cent and wondered what the fuss was about.
