Maybe you’re like me and you rarely feel as though you have enough time to get much of anything done.

As a child, perhaps sitting in a droning lesson with an inanimate teacher, I’d watch the clock and judge myself sentenced to purgatory. The barest turn of the minute hand would fool me into thinking that time moves far too slowly, that perhaps endings were far less common than beginnings.

As an adult, there is a different awareness. I’ll discover myself in conversation almost as exciting as the lesson from youth. A guarded glance at the clock proves affirms time’s familiar pace, and yet there is an alternate sense that the most profitable hours have flittered away with a hummingbird’s stride.

“Time speeds away irretrievably,” we think, not realizing Virgil already penned the phrase. But no matter. The instincts of both are right. Time is the most expensive fruit in the basket, and it’s also the one that ripens and spoils the quickest.

Mindful of this, I’ve learned to multitask in some pretty incredible ways. I have articles, blog posts, and sermons to write each week. I have a spouse and four children to whom time must be devoted. I have day and evening meetings to attend, classes to teach, and visitations to make. Among a great number of other things, I also have my health to consider. I need time on a treadmill to loosen up my decaying frame and keep my waistline in check. A day or two of no walking and this 40-something feels a little more like an 80-something.

But again, as time breezes by, I’ve learned some things about myself.

I’ve learned that even as I could never read in a moving car, I can read perfectly fine on a treadmill. I’ve discovered that rather than trying to find a laptop desk made for my treadmill, I was capable of designing and employing my own from the scrap lumber in my garage. I’ve become aware that I can type about two thousand words in an hour at that homemade miniature desk on the treadmill. I’ve learned that I can do these things with great confidence, never once relying on the safety tie that stops the treadmill if I suddenly trip and go flying through the closet door behind me.

In other words, as time and tasks have pressed against me, I’ve learned I’m a death-defying exerciser who gets an incredible amount of study and writing accomplished at four to five miles per hour.

Admittedly, it takes a certain measure of skill to get so much accomplished in such a short period of time. Auchentoshan knows I speak the truth. The distillery’s 12-year-old edition is nothing less than the Doogie Howser among a good number of the whiskies I’ve enjoyed as of late.

This triple-distilled delight wafts scents of the better, darker fruits in time’s basket, all of which have been carefully malted at peak ripeness. Another draw suggests a sprinkling of wood spice.

The palate is enchanting. It presents itself with a gentle youthfulness, but then begins reciting lofty lines of spicy vanilla and raspberry prose. A twelve-year-old, you think? It can’t be.

The finish betrays time’s truest nature. It’s gone much faster than you’d expect. Nevertheless, the moment together was anything but dull, and the finish reminds of the fruits that spoke so clearly.

Overall, the Auchentoshan 12-year-old edition infers that while a little over a decade in the barrel was certainly sufficient for crafting a superb dram, one can only imagine what a few more years in the barrel would have delivered.

I’m guessing something in the superhero range—like Doogie Howser bitten by a radioactive spider.