Greeting, especially to the Americans who have been reading in record numbers recently. Makes me wish they'd let me advertise on here so I could get a couple of quid in ad revenue, but apparently it's adult content. Once again I find myself apologizing for infrequent blog posts. I always build up your expectations so much and then leave you hanging for months. I've got a couple of decent beers around so I'll get a few of those done. They're quicker to write, since it's just one drink. The whisky ones take longer because whisky changes in interesting ways after you open it and by the time you're halfway down the bottle it's not quite the same. It takes me a bit of time to drink half a bottle of whisky so I can't bash out a review every night. I don't think my liver would take it. Anyway, I've wasted enough of your precious time so let's get to it.
Bit of an into
This is quite an interesting whisky and you'll see why. First let's take a look at the name. GlenDronach is obviously the name of the distillery and comes from the Dronac Burn which is the source of its water. "15 year" is quite obvious too, the youngest whisky in the bottle is 15 years old. There may or may not be some older whisky in the mix, but the youngest is 15 years. But "revival"? What on earth could that mean? Did it faint like a Victorian gentlewoman confronted with the horrors of the working class, and someone gave it smelling salts? Of course not, that would be absurd. What it means is that the distillery was closed for a while and then re-opened. This is the first whisky produced since re-opening. The distillery was revived and therefore this is Glendronach 15 year revival. How exciting.
Obviously the distillery has a bit of history before it was revived, and here's an overview of it: It was built in 1771 by James Allerdice in the Valley of Forgue in Aberdeenshire and was called Glen House. It wasn't a distillery at that point which is why it wasn't called Glen Distillery. The house is still there and a whole lot of distillery managers have lived there over the years. They reckon the ghost of a Spanish lady lives in the front room and is partial to a drop of whisky from time to time, presumably stealing the angels share, the miscreant. They say she traveled to Scotland from Spain in a sherry casks which is a bit of a silly thing to do. I have no idea who "they" are. Ghost enthusiasts probably. In 1826 My Allerdice decided to open a distillery to make "Guid GlenDronnach" so he built one at the site. It was apparently one of the first licensed distilleries in Scotland. I'm in a slightly cynical mood after having met a bunch a bunch of young conservatives at work, so I'm going to have to point out that "one of the first" is a pretty meaningless way to describe anything. technically they're all one of the first unless they're the last. One of the first three? One of the first ten? one of the first hundred? Who knows? I would assume it was in the first twenty at least, but they've been a little vague about it and I can't be bothered to look it up. I assume there were unlicensed distilleries around too, making some kind of cheeky moonshine. That'd be interesting to taste. I saw moonshine in the state approved off license the other day so it might come up in a review at some point if you're lucky. I'm not sure if it counts as moonshine if it's sold by the government but whatever. Well done for keeping things above board Mr. Allerdice, we like a bit of honesty, although it turns out Mr Allerdice was a bit of a rogue, but I'll get to that later.
Four years later the distillery was bought by a Mr Walter Scott who was apparently from Teaninich. I should look up what or where that is, but since this review's been so long in coming I won't. I don't expect it's very interesting anyway. it could be though, maybe you can Google it yourself. Comment if you do I'm slightly intrigued. By the 1860s Glendronach had become the largest duty paying distillery in the highlands, keeping up the early tradition of paying taxes and being generally law abiding. They had over fifty people living on the site, which seems like a nice idea to me, but then I don't think they had a great deal of choice in it so it might not have been so much fun. In 1920 it was bought by Captain Charles grant, the son of the founder of Glenfiddich, who sold it to William Teacher and Sons in 1960. Grant's and Teacher's a pretty big names in the whisky industry today. I'm not sure it was the same Grant and Teacher as gave their names to the famous whiskies we have now, but I'd like to believe it. In fact I'll Google it. Not the same Grant, but it is the same Teacher.
William Teacher ans Sons doubled the number of stills which sounds impressive until you discover that they started with two. Still good I suppose. They kept up production until 1996 when the lovely GlenDronnach distillery was mothballed by its then owner Allied Distillers. Not sure how they got hold of it. I might Google that too. Actually I won't. I'm pretty sure I've explained mothballing before, but it means they closed it down but kept all the equipment there in case anyone wanted to start it up again, which they did in 2002. Chivas Brothers took over in 2005 when Allied Distillers was taken over by Pernod Ricard, I assume the same Chivas as in Chivas Regal. I have to say GlenDronnach is a lot better than any Chivas whisky I've tried, but maybe I've only had their cheap versions. In fact I've only had a tiny sample in an airport duty free which isn't much to go on so maybe I'm being unfair.
GlenDronach converted to using steam coils to heat their stills in 2005 and had used coal fires until then and was one of the last to stop using coal. Again "one of the last", not the last. They're all one of the last except for the first, but let's say it was in the last five just for fun. I think that would have produced a more interesting whisky myself, since direct firing a still means the heat is uneven and the maillard reaction which I assume happens during distillation will happen less evenly and produce a greater range of flavour compounds. Springbank use direct firing and they produce some very complex flavours. Plus the coal smoke floating around might get into it. One of my thoughts with this whisky is that a little smokiness would make it almost perfect, but forget that until you get to the end or it won't be a surprise. Of course burning coal isn't particularly good for the environment and there's a chance climate change would affect the aging process, since it relies of changes in temperature over the years to draw the whisky in and out of the wood and flavour it nicely. Not sure how you'd tell, I think quality of casks is making more of a difference across the industry at the moment.
In 2008 GlenDronnach was taken over by BenRiach Distillery Comapany Ltd. and in 2015 they won Global Whisky Distiller of the year at the Icons of Whisky Awards, which is pretty good considering they're a small, privately owned, independant company. I was given this bottle in 2015 by my old friend Mr. Tiffen and I've just realized that a 15 year old whisky bottled in 2015 would have to be distilled in the year 2000, two years before the distillery re-opened. Not sure how that works, maybe my information is off even though I got it from their website. There's a chance the whisky is actually from old stock, but then you'd expect it to be older than 15 years. Maybe they tried a few batches before officially opening properly a couple of years later just to check everything was working properly and to get the hang of using the old equipment. I'm not sure, but something's not adding up.
So now to james Allerdice and his saucy antics. The story goes that he made a nice bath of lovely "Guid GlenDronach" and took it down to Edinbugh to sell. He went to all the pubs he could find to offer his wares but they all told him they'd already bought their whisky for the season but would bear him in mind for the next year. Feeling a bit down he wandered miserably back to his hotel where he met two ladies of negotiable affection. That's prostitutes for those unfamiliar with British euphemisms. They asked him to "buy them a drink" which is another euphemism, but I'm too polite to explain that one. He told them he had a whole distillery and took the pair of them up to his hotel room, much to the dismay of the hotel's staff. The next day the two ladies returned asking for another bottle to share with their friends, which might be a euphemism and might not be. If it is i don't understand it. Mr. Allerdice had pretty much given up trying to sell his whisky and gave them rather a lot and the street was soon filled with drunken hookers. This got people's attention as you'd expect and rather than ask why there was a street full of staggering women shouting "Penny a touch, a shilling to go all the way", they asked what the women were drinking and soon were asking for GlenDronnach by name in the local pubs. James Allerdice didn't go home the as he'd planned but stayed and sold all his whisky and it was soon available in every pub on the Royal Mile. The moral of the story is giving your product to prostitutes is a sure way of breaking into the market.
Anyway, the more important information is that it's 46% alcohol, which is a nice craft whisky kind of percentage. It's non chill filtered and is its natural colour which is usually a good thing. I still don't think I can taste caramel colouring, but apparently some people can, and chill filtering tends to remove some of the complexity, particularly on the finish. I have no idea how much my old friend Mr. Tiffen paid for this, but masterofmalt.com currently have it at £38.19, although they're sold out. I assume the price will be going up and up since it's a limited batch and a lot will have been drunk by people like me by now. By the way, that's the equivalent of $49.53, €44.12, 401.97 Norwegian koners (which is very reasonable if it was being sold in Norway at this price) or 80.67 Azerbaijani New Manat.
Packaging
Mostly green. It comes in a fairly typical cardboard tube which is a rather pleasant shade of green. I'd like to call it emerald green but I'm not sure it is. There's rather a lot of writing and things on the tube making is look slightly cluttered from some angles. It's got a nice little drawing of the distillery on there too. The good thing with having a lot of writing on there is that there's a fair bit of information on there, including a bit of history, information about chill filtering and colouring and such, tasting notes and a recipe for clootie dumplings. Not the recipe, I just added that for my own amusement. Time for a gander:
Visually busy
Visually busy might be a little harsh. It's got a lot of reading material for those drinking alone, which doesn't sound much better now that I've typed it. I quite like the look of it, but like I said it's a bit cluttered if you're feeling harsh. It's quite traditional which I like in a whisky bottle. Actually I like whisky in a whisky bottle! LOL, ROFL, etc. Regular readers will realize that I don't use internet abbreviations and will understand that this is intended to be an amusing parody of such things. My pedantic nature simply won't allow me to approve of "LOL". In fact I recently typed the letter b in a text message by accident instead of typing the word "be" and had to send another message immediately to explain that it was a mistake. I've drifted again. I like the traditional style of whisky bottles, I find it much more appealing. Just personal taste really. There are some brands using more modern designs and I have nothing against them really, but the old style just looks nicer to me. It doesn't change the contents of the bottle. The only modern trend in labeling I'm slightly wary of is the tendency now to give a whisky expression a special name instead of an age statement. It doesn't meant the whisky's bad, it just means there's a reason they don't want to tell you how old it is. It's well worth reading a few reviews of non age statement whiskies before buying. In fact its worth reading reviews of whiskies with age statements too. I'd recommend reading davidtastes.blogspot.com that guy's a special kind of genius. I'm getting distracted so we'd better have another picture.
Very quaint
It's like a library
Alluring
Very quaint
I'm assuming this is a picture of the distillery and not just a distillery. It's a nice picture and the colour goes nicely with the green and everything, but my first impression was that they were trying to fit too much on there. I'm beginning to lean more toward calling it detailed rather than cluttered though. There's a fair bit going on with the back of the tube too.
It's like a library
That was hyperbole, it's not much like a library at all but it does have words on, and I think the dark green bit with the tasting notes looks a bit like a posh bookmark. I have mixed feelings about including tasting notes. I have mixed feelings about a lot of things in fact. I expect you've noticed. My feelings are so mixed that I find myself unable to give anything a proper rating, even as simple as a score out of ten. I might give it a score of 8 after having just tasted a worse whisky, but only 6 after having just tasted a better one. I might have said this before, but I used to work in a coffee shop and we got a new kind of muffin. We all tasted the new chocolate muffins and they were good, but none of us thought they were any different from the muffins we already sold which were also pretty tasty muffins. Then we tried the old kind of muffins and after having tasted the new kind they just tasted of flour. No flavour at all in what we had all thought were very good muffins. The only difference was that we had just tasted a better muffin. I think the taste experience is not only subjective, but also internally inconsistent. Ralfy of ralfy.com recommends having a drop of a blended whisky that you're fairly familiar with as a kind of warm up for tasting a single malt. I can see the logic in that, it would kind of calibrate your sense of taste and smell and help you to be more objective. I've forgotten how I got onto this, but I just realized it's nothing to do with the packaging. I think I was talking about tasting notes. I have mixed feelings about tasting notes on the packaging. They can give you an idea of what to expect if you're buying a bottle you haven't tasted before, but at the same time I think they can kind of skew your perception of what you're tasting. Like if it says nuts, chocolate and mango chutney, you can go looking for nuts chocolate and mango chutney flavours, rather than letting the smells trigger your own memories and having your own personal experience. What I do like to do is make my own notes and then read the ones on the bottle to see how they compare. I did that with this whisky and we'll get to that in the extra notes section. It's worth noting that any tasting notes on the packaging are going to have a bit of an advertising slant to them. They'll always be putting a bit of a positive spin on things to make it sound as appetizing as possible, not just informing you about what to expect. For example I've tasted a couple of whiskies that have a bit of a farm yard note to them, like silage or manure but in a way that's faint and actually quite pleasant. If that note was mentioned on the label it would be something like "fresh country air" rather than "a steaming pile of bobbar". I'm exaggerating of course, but you get the point. By the way, bobbar is a colloquial term for poo.
Time to hurry this up, it's already way longer than it should be. All in all I approve of the packaging. Generally I find whisky labeling follows one of about four paths. The "This whisky's from a lovely place" path, the "This whisky has a lot of history to it" path, the "This is high quality, tasty whisky" path and the "We're doing something new" path. or a combination of a couple of them. I think they were trying to do the lovely place, history and high quality tasty paths all at once and ended up trying to fit a little too much information on there. It's a nice tube, but I think it looks best from the side like this:
Much more restful viewing
The bottle in the tube looks good to me. Same green labeling with fancy golden swirly bits. Interestingly the information they've chosen to repeat on the bottle is the tasting notes, leading me to think they really wanted to go with the "This is good quality, tasty whisky" labeling path but had too much other interesting stuff to choose from. "Indecision is the childless, spinster aunt of invention" as they say. That would make indecision the sister of necessity, which makes me wonder who invention's father is. Maybe I shouldn't include every thought that comes to my mind in my reviews. At least you get more free reading material if I do. You can always scroll down to the tasting notes.
Alluring
You probably noticed the clear glass bottle and the colour of the whisky. Look how dark it is.What a beautiful sight. It's like looking into a tin of golden syrup, which all English people will know is one of the most awe inspiring things you can do. It's almost transcendent, like being three and putting your head in the washing machine. It's other worldly. Anyway, with whisky that colour and without any E150a added you want to show it off. Green glass or other colours suggest they'd prefer to hide the colour until after you've bought it. We tend to make assumptions about flavour based on the colour, specifically the darker the whisky, the better we think it will taste. It's not true, but if you have a naturally dark whisky you would want to take advantage of the common misconception. That said, the bottle showing off the nice dark whisky is hidden in an opaque cardboard tube. Make sense of that if you can. Presumably the shop, website or market stall would have a bottle on display. I think we're almost done here. I'll pour a glass while you look at these other pictures that didn't quite fit in the main body of this section.
Here's a bit of the reading material provided to help pass the time while drinking.
I quite like the fancy swirlies.
This is the lid on the top of the tube. What a lovely shade of green.
Here's a bit of the reading material provided to help pass the time while drinking.
I quite like the fancy swirlies.
This is the lid on the top of the tube. What a lovely shade of green.
Smell in the bottle
On opening
Sherry
Oaky Vanilla
Sultana
Very fruity
Think I can smell PVA glue
Soft brown sugar like light muscovado
Dried apricot
Immediately very fruity and sherry-ish. I'm thinking they used some pretty good barrels and it's true that the whisky is aged entirely in Olorosso sherry barrels
Later
soft brown sugar
Raisin or sultana. Maybe both.
Nutty, kind of sweet nutty, not sure what kind of nut
Toffee-ish, maybe treacle toffee, but its a long time since i had it.
Hint of spiced orange, kind of pommander orange - orange, clove and cinnamon, we made them at school. Tudor period air freshener you know.
Dark chocolate, nice rich dark chocolate
I might suggest chocolate orange, but I'm getting orange and chocolate. In fact it's that kind of orange I think, not a fresh orange or artificial orange flavouring, but like the oranginess of a chocolate orange
Appearance
I've already mentioned it has a nice golden syrup type colour. It looks a bit less intense in the glass, but still a nice golden brown. Certainly too dark to look like what most whiskies look like. If yours looks like this you need to drink more water.
Probably has a texture like sun
The appearance is very nice, but on its own tells us almost nothing about what we're going to experience. The colour suggests either sherry maturation or added colouring and you can't tell by looking which it is. You can find out about the sherry maturation on the bottle, but you have to look at the tube to discover it's the natural colour. In a bar that could be tricky. Also, now that more and more distilleries are experimenting with different barrels for maturing whisky, the deep golden appearance only suggests sherry and by no means confirms it. It could equally be from a tawny port barrel for example.
Colour aside, you can see the viscosity of this whisky quite easily. When you pour it it looks thicker than a lot of whiskies, and if you swirl it around the glass and let it run down the sides the "legs" are very thick. The legs are the little lines it makes as it trickles down the glass. The relatively viscous consistency shown by the thick legs tells us this will be a very full bodied whisky, that is to say it will feel quite thick and rich in the mouth. Combine that with the Olorosso sherry maturation and we can expect something sweet and thick and probably with a fair bit of dried fruit flavours. I'm writing this after having drunk half the bottle of course, but the clues are still valid.
Neat
Nose
Pva glue at first. Not unpleasant though. That smell seemed to become more fruity after a day or two and eventually the glue element of it disappeared.
Fried banana
Vanilla
Soft, dusty quality to it
Fruity
Dried apricot
Pear, like a pear pear not artificial pear drop pear, quite a sweet pear. The chemical is an ester, but doesn't smell like an artificially produced one.
Raisiny but alcoholic so ends up being quite Christmassy
dried fruits, but that are dry dry rather than soaked in brandy or whatever at christmas. Smells like it should be sticky.
Soft brown sugar, thinking light muscovado
Maybe a background hint of something earthy
Possibly marmalade, maybe candied peel, kind of pithy orangey suggestion in the rich fruitiness
Apple, kind of fermenty apple, but not totally.
Woody
Halfway down the bottle now and it's changing significantly, so I've left a line there.
Orangey smell but not like an actual fresh orange or orange juice, not orange sweets either, reminds me of the wine at my outdoor pizza appreciating friend Mr. Taylor's wedding. A nice chianti, but we didn't have liver.
Clove, maybe cinnamon too
Still raisiny but that's more in the back ground now
Generally think mulled wine but not so winey.
Woodiness is more nutty now. I'd go with nut shells rather than actual nuts, hazel nut shells if you pushed me
Hint of baked banana but faint
A hint of something floral, bit like lilly maybe, quite a heavy, heady kind of floral
Not getting chocolate like in the bottle where I just smelled chocolate, but its been sitting in the glass for ages at this point
Banana and chocolate getting more prominent as it sits in the glass
Banana and demerera sugar. I had that when I was a kid, it's worth a try. Take an egg cup and fill in with crunchy demarera sugar, then take a banana, dip in in the sugar and take a bite. Tasty right? Now repeat that until the banana is gone.
Woody vanilla, most likely oak.
Slightly earthy
Muscovado sugar coming back, more molasses smell than demarera sugar although it's similar
I'm half thinking dark cherry but I might be imagining that, dark chocolate with something fruity and alcohol, making me thing of dark cherry liquors or black forrest gatteau
Arrival
Quite a short arrival (which is actually a very ambiguous and subjective thing to say)
Sweet
Fruity, like sweet dried fruits
Has a quality like a rich red wine
Alcohol sting
I'm about halfway down the bottle now and I'm noticing some changes, hence the gap just there.
Not too much alcohol sting now
Still quite a short arrival
Still nice and rich
Appley smell I didn't notice while sniffing about, with femented kind of apple taste
Nut shells, or nit skin. Like when you crack a hazelnut and it's dry and the skin on the nut kernel is dry and tanniny
Maybe dark chocolate at the end as it transitions to development
Some kind of tropical fruit, maybe a hint of passion fruit for a second
dark chocolate for sure now that its been in the glass for a while
Orangey-ish, same as the oranginess on the nose
Development
I'd say the development is fairly long.
Red wine
Woody vanilla
Fruity
Light muscovado sugar
Dried fruits in a fairly general way, not anything specific for me
Fruitiness becoming more raisiny, more like the taste of Olorosso Sherry in fact, which shouldn't be surprising since it's aged in Olorosso sherry casks.
Dark chocolate, rich and bitter sweet.
Just a hint of something like emulsion paint just for a second
Nut shell sensation lingering in the background still. it's been there the whole time, but just loitering in the background
Finish
Nice, long finish
Wood, reminded me of old floorboards. Brought up an image of biting into an old dry oak floorboard.
Grape pips, tanniny but with a hint of grape flavour
Black tea
Hint of orange
Cocoa powder, dry, bitter chocolate
Faint hint of a dark treacle sweetness
Treacle toffee
Kind of a burnt sugar, bittersweet taste (Note that there is no caramel colouring in this whisky, so I'm not tasting that)
1 tsp water
Nose
Immediately lots of brown sugar, I'm thinking demarera this time.
Sherry
Soft brown sugar (A little different from demarera)
Egg custard tart, vanilla but a bit eggy and creamy.
Haribo, maybe jelly bears, but more tangy at times like the ones with the tangy crystals on, which I think are citric acid.
Vanillary wood, I think oaky.
Soft brown sugar keeps coming back, more like light brown muscovado this time.
Earthy after some time, almost the rain on a hot day smell but earthier. That's bacteria farts I'm told.
More brown sugar at the edges of the glass, more sherry towards the middle.
Cooked banana.
Light muscovado sugar smell dominating a bit.
Orange, kind of like chocolate orange, but not so chocolatey.
Dark chocolate is in there too, so maybe it is chocolate orange.
Almost marzipan, but nuttier. Sweet almondy taste.
Hint of fresh sweet orange peel, like when you fist start peeling an orange.
More brown sugar, switching between demerara and light muscovado as it develops, but demarera at the moment.
Bright, fresh spices coming in, I'm thinking clove, maybe cinnamon. I could call it allspice I think.
Orange coming back in making it like a pomander orange. I think I've mentioned those before.
More demarera sugar
I'm thinking cola cubes, but definitely boiled sweets of some kind.
Cloves again, very definitely cloves this time.
Oranginess increasing.
Eventually a nice sherbet lemon smell.
Arrival
Caramel.
Vanilla.
Old dusty floorboards.
Reminded me of caramel pudding with caramel sauce. Didn't taste like it particularly, but reminded me of it. Kind of a creaminess I guess.
Sweet prunes and brown sugar after the water had been working for a while.
Sweet raisins.
Woody floorboards increasing with time.
Fruity tang develops after a while, like haribo.
Cola cubes (I think, same as on the nose really)
Cloves.
Quite a short arrival
Development
Fruity.
Fruits in brandy like preparing a christmas cake.
Raisiny sherry.
Wood, getting woodier as the water does its thing. Think old dry floorboards again, possibly oak and kind of baked dry, there's a kind of toasted taste with it. Maybe a little dusty too.
Water also seems to increase the length of the development. (A very subjective thing.)
Quite grapey now, white grapes I think. The big kind with big pips in.
Maybe chocolate.
Faint oange.
Spicey like the Amrone wine I sometimes buy. A rich peppery spice and a little smokey.
Getting quite a winey quality to it now, like a rich red wine, which isn't too surprising given it's sherry maturation.
Woody, like damp logs in a forrest. A bit earthy, bit mossy.
Hint of egg custard desert.
Faintest hint of fennel or angelica. Sweet but faint and a little hard to pin down.
Very long development.
Finish
Woody, old dry oak.
Bit earthy, kind of dusty earth.
Tea.
Green tea.
White grape juice.
Hint of fermented apple.
A touch of dark chocolate.
Still rich and fruity, the woodiness is more dominant but the fruitiness is still there.
Fresh mint. I was surprised by that, but heard recently that fresh mint is quite a common note in sherried whiskies.
I might say Pimm's but it's along time since I tasted that.
Grape pips.
Earthy note in the background thoughout.
Another hint of actual sherry after a long time.
Very long finish, has lots of things I couldn't quite place.
I yawned and tasted marmalade.
2tsp water
I got through a fair bit of this bottle drinking it with one teaspoon in a glass, but went for an extra one just to see and it was awesome. Lot's more going on. Have a read and imagine how tasty it was.
Nose
Silage at first.
Tangy, bit vomity becoming more like mayonaise, so vinegar really with a creaminess and maybe a hint of mustard.
Hint of boiled egg.
Nutty, thinking nut shells.
Demarera or soft brown sugar, thinking demarera.
A sweetness to the tang.
Maybe a hint of blossom honey.
Unripe banana.
Nutty toffee-ish, maybe nougat.
Chocolate added to the sweet nuttiness making me thing of hazelnut chocolate.
Fresh mint.
Generally herby.
Spiced orange.
Clove.
Glace cherry I think.
A hint of eggy smell, a bit sulphurous. Not enough to be from a sulphur candle which they sometimes use to sterilise barrels. I'm thinking the faint sulphur here is from the distilation process, but I suppose they could have used a sulphur candle to sterilise the sherry barrel before aging the sherry in it but not before putting in the whisky. Who knows?.
Raisin box. Bit raisiny, bit cardboardy.
Demarera coming back pretty strong, but not dominating the whole time like with 1 tsp of water.
Bit of cereal with a bunch of other things I can't place.
More herbiness.
White grape juice.
Light muscovado sugar.
Oaky wood, like dry oak floorboards. I think it's like oak without the vanilla hint.
Orange smell, sweet and slightly spiced.
Something almost hazelnut but not quite. I'm wondering what hazel wood tastes like.
Faint hint of aniseed.
Vegetal herby smell again.
Hint of PVA glue for a second.
Spices coming in properly now, kind of peppery, but not white or black. I had whatever this is recently but I'm not sure what it's called.
Treacle toffee.
Vanilla again.
Arrival
Kind of sweet.
Treacle toffee.
Fruity tang, like haribo.
Touch of raspberry in a halfway candy, halfway fresh kind of way.
Hint of sponge cake.
Bit salty, but not really coastal.
Nutty toffee.
Juicy feel.
Bit peppery.
Dark chocolate.
Orange liqueur.
Touch of pepper.
Development
Coffee like in a coffee cream quality street, kind of artificial coffee flavour.
Dark chocolate.
Orangey like dark chocolate orange.
Rich fruity sherriness.
Hazel nuts, but ones fresh from the shell where they're kind of dry.
Touch of vegetal herbiness.
Kind of a dried herb thing, herby but a touch of bitterness and dry powdery quality.
Toffee penny type toffee, maybe toffos. I haven't had them for years.
Hint of sweet liquorice.
Bit tea like.
Not so fruity with two teaspoons of water.
Haribo for a second.
Maybe a hint of dried apricot.
Very rich mouthfeel.
Pepperiness lingering.
More orange.
Fresh mint.
Dark chocolate lingering too.
Coffee coming back in, but richer and darker this time.
Nice warming spiciness which seems more than just the alcohol.
Again a nice long development.
Finish
Kind of nutty, nutshell or hazelnuts right from the shell.
Aftertaste like haribo aftertaste, tangy fruity sweets and almost sugary feel.
Hint of white grape with the pips in.
Dark chocolate.
That black forrest gateau thing, chocolate, cake, and cherry liquour.
Tannin dryness.
Faintest smoke, like the Amarone wine I mentioned earlier.
Charcoal, but not the smoke, the actual coals.
Chocolate cake, but not black forest gateau this time.
Cocoa powder.
Gets a bit more bitter towards the end.
Black tea.
Faintest suggestion of fresh mint.
Hint of raspberry or strawberry. It was very faint so not very sure there.
Grape juice.
A few extra comments
Very full bodied and rich as is revealed by the thickness of the "legs", those little lines you get running down the inside of the glass after you swirl it around a bit. I tried to get a picture, but couldn't get it to some out very well. Take a look anyway. The legs were almost as thick as my own. It's rich almost to thew point of being chewy.
The wininess of the development is likely from the sherry. Sherry is a fortified wine and is made from all the same stuff as wine, so some winey tastes and smells are not surprising.
Scotch mist appeared, but only a faint haze. The scotch mist shows that it's not chill filtered, although not all non chill filtered whiskies have it. Chill filtered whiskies definitely don't have it.
Mint was a surprise, and I wanted to include how I discovered that it's a common taste in sherried whiskies. I work in a hotel and we recently hosted a local whisky club's 20th anniversary event. They'd invited a Scottish gentleman to do a whisky tasting for them. He turned out to be Fred Laing, the managing director of Douglas Laing the independent bottling company. I was all excited and really wanted to catch him to ask a few questions so I could do some serious name dropping on here and call it an interview, but it sadly wasn't to be. I did get a taste of the whisky he'd brought for the occasion. It was a 20 year old Blair Athol which Mr. Laing had chosen personally. It was very nice even though what I tasted had been in a glass with cling film over the top for 8 hours, and I will publish my tasting notes one day. Anyway, I didn't get to join in the tasting as I was supposed to be working, but I did get to eaves drop from outside the door and I overheard Mr. Laing pointing out a fresh mint taste and saying that it's quite common in a sherried whisky. So there you go.
I've decided it's well worth trying at least one glass with what seems like it should be too much water. I was going with one teaspoon for quite a while, which was very pleasant but adding another brought out a whole lot more complexity. With one teaspoon the brown sugar note dominated everything. It was interesting how it kept changing between demarera and light muscovado, but I think it masked other interesting smells and flavours.
Now to the tasting notes on the packaging. I've copied them here in my style, which I hope you can follow.
Nose
Incredible concentration of aromas.
Treacle toffee.
Chocolate orange.
Nutty notes.
Vanillla.
Palate
A very dynamic and full bodied dram.
Chewy.
Coffee.
Chocolate.
Treacle scones.
Finish
A veritable feast to enliven the senses.
I have to say I agree with their notes, but I would have added brown sugar and dried fruit, and I'm not sure about the treacle scones because I've never had one. It does indeed have an incredible concentration of aromas, and lot of body and complexity. I mentioned earlier that the tasting notes on whisky packaging have a kind of advertising slant, and they usually do, but I think if anything these guys have sold themselves short. There's so much more going on with this stuff than they could have space for on the label.
I think I was going to put something else here, but I forgot what it was.
Conclusion
For me a touch of peat smoke would make this whisky pretty close to perfect. Very pleasant, Lots of body, lots of complexity, very satisfying drink. Seems like a good quality maturation from what I can tell, like the complexity of the finish, the way it didn't change significantly over the first couple of days after opening the bottle. All in all a very pleasant whisky indeed. On the standard one to ten scale I'd have to say it's flippin' lovely. Truly marvelous stuff. Would I buy it again? Well, I didn't buy it in the first place. I'd be very happy to receive it as a gift again though. If I saw it I'd definitely be tempted to buy it, but as I said it's a limited batch so the price might be going up to crazy levels if you can even find it in a shop. I'd certainly check the price if I saw it. I definitely hope this bottle's not my last taste and I'll be looking out for other GlenDronach expressions to sample. Go buy it if you can and buy as much as you can afford. Then invite me over.
Well that's it. It was a long one. I hope I'm not going for quantity over quality, I certiainly don't want to do that. I'll try to be more concise next time, and once again I aim to get the next one done a bit sooner. I'm working on the Bunnahabhain Toiteach I've been mentioning in nearly every post I've made, but I might do the fancy Douglas Laing one first. I only had a little glass so the notes aren't too long. I should come up with a nice little sign off phrase, but I probably won't. Suggest one in the comments if you like, maybe I'll be inspired. Bye.
Edit: This costs about five hundred quid now. Bloody hell!
Nose
Immediately lots of brown sugar, I'm thinking demarera this time.
Sherry
Soft brown sugar (A little different from demarera)
Egg custard tart, vanilla but a bit eggy and creamy.
Haribo, maybe jelly bears, but more tangy at times like the ones with the tangy crystals on, which I think are citric acid.
Vanillary wood, I think oaky.
Soft brown sugar keeps coming back, more like light brown muscovado this time.
Earthy after some time, almost the rain on a hot day smell but earthier. That's bacteria farts I'm told.
More brown sugar at the edges of the glass, more sherry towards the middle.
Cooked banana.
Light muscovado sugar smell dominating a bit.
Orange, kind of like chocolate orange, but not so chocolatey.
Dark chocolate is in there too, so maybe it is chocolate orange.
Almost marzipan, but nuttier. Sweet almondy taste.
Hint of fresh sweet orange peel, like when you fist start peeling an orange.
More brown sugar, switching between demerara and light muscovado as it develops, but demarera at the moment.
Bright, fresh spices coming in, I'm thinking clove, maybe cinnamon. I could call it allspice I think.
Orange coming back in making it like a pomander orange. I think I've mentioned those before.
More demarera sugar
I'm thinking cola cubes, but definitely boiled sweets of some kind.
Cloves again, very definitely cloves this time.
Oranginess increasing.
Eventually a nice sherbet lemon smell.
Arrival
Caramel.
Vanilla.
Old dusty floorboards.
Reminded me of caramel pudding with caramel sauce. Didn't taste like it particularly, but reminded me of it. Kind of a creaminess I guess.
Sweet prunes and brown sugar after the water had been working for a while.
Sweet raisins.
Woody floorboards increasing with time.
Fruity tang develops after a while, like haribo.
Cola cubes (I think, same as on the nose really)
Cloves.
Quite a short arrival
Development
Fruity.
Fruits in brandy like preparing a christmas cake.
Raisiny sherry.
Wood, getting woodier as the water does its thing. Think old dry floorboards again, possibly oak and kind of baked dry, there's a kind of toasted taste with it. Maybe a little dusty too.
Water also seems to increase the length of the development. (A very subjective thing.)
Quite grapey now, white grapes I think. The big kind with big pips in.
Maybe chocolate.
Faint oange.
Spicey like the Amrone wine I sometimes buy. A rich peppery spice and a little smokey.
Getting quite a winey quality to it now, like a rich red wine, which isn't too surprising given it's sherry maturation.
Woody, like damp logs in a forrest. A bit earthy, bit mossy.
Hint of egg custard desert.
Faintest hint of fennel or angelica. Sweet but faint and a little hard to pin down.
Very long development.
Finish
Woody, old dry oak.
Bit earthy, kind of dusty earth.
Tea.
Green tea.
White grape juice.
Hint of fermented apple.
A touch of dark chocolate.
Still rich and fruity, the woodiness is more dominant but the fruitiness is still there.
Fresh mint. I was surprised by that, but heard recently that fresh mint is quite a common note in sherried whiskies.
I might say Pimm's but it's along time since I tasted that.
Grape pips.
Earthy note in the background thoughout.
Another hint of actual sherry after a long time.
Very long finish, has lots of things I couldn't quite place.
I yawned and tasted marmalade.
2tsp water
I got through a fair bit of this bottle drinking it with one teaspoon in a glass, but went for an extra one just to see and it was awesome. Lot's more going on. Have a read and imagine how tasty it was.
Nose
Silage at first.
Tangy, bit vomity becoming more like mayonaise, so vinegar really with a creaminess and maybe a hint of mustard.
Hint of boiled egg.
Nutty, thinking nut shells.
Demarera or soft brown sugar, thinking demarera.
A sweetness to the tang.
Maybe a hint of blossom honey.
Unripe banana.
Nutty toffee-ish, maybe nougat.
Chocolate added to the sweet nuttiness making me thing of hazelnut chocolate.
Fresh mint.
Generally herby.
Spiced orange.
Clove.
Glace cherry I think.
A hint of eggy smell, a bit sulphurous. Not enough to be from a sulphur candle which they sometimes use to sterilise barrels. I'm thinking the faint sulphur here is from the distilation process, but I suppose they could have used a sulphur candle to sterilise the sherry barrel before aging the sherry in it but not before putting in the whisky. Who knows?.
Raisin box. Bit raisiny, bit cardboardy.
Demarera coming back pretty strong, but not dominating the whole time like with 1 tsp of water.
Bit of cereal with a bunch of other things I can't place.
More herbiness.
White grape juice.
Light muscovado sugar.
Oaky wood, like dry oak floorboards. I think it's like oak without the vanilla hint.
Orange smell, sweet and slightly spiced.
Something almost hazelnut but not quite. I'm wondering what hazel wood tastes like.
Faint hint of aniseed.
Vegetal herby smell again.
Hint of PVA glue for a second.
Spices coming in properly now, kind of peppery, but not white or black. I had whatever this is recently but I'm not sure what it's called.
Treacle toffee.
Vanilla again.
Arrival
Kind of sweet.
Treacle toffee.
Fruity tang, like haribo.
Touch of raspberry in a halfway candy, halfway fresh kind of way.
Hint of sponge cake.
Bit salty, but not really coastal.
Nutty toffee.
Juicy feel.
Bit peppery.
Dark chocolate.
Orange liqueur.
Touch of pepper.
Development
Coffee like in a coffee cream quality street, kind of artificial coffee flavour.
Dark chocolate.
Orangey like dark chocolate orange.
Rich fruity sherriness.
Hazel nuts, but ones fresh from the shell where they're kind of dry.
Touch of vegetal herbiness.
Kind of a dried herb thing, herby but a touch of bitterness and dry powdery quality.
Toffee penny type toffee, maybe toffos. I haven't had them for years.
Hint of sweet liquorice.
Bit tea like.
Not so fruity with two teaspoons of water.
Haribo for a second.
Maybe a hint of dried apricot.
Very rich mouthfeel.
Pepperiness lingering.
More orange.
Fresh mint.
Dark chocolate lingering too.
Coffee coming back in, but richer and darker this time.
Nice warming spiciness which seems more than just the alcohol.
Again a nice long development.
Finish
Kind of nutty, nutshell or hazelnuts right from the shell.
Aftertaste like haribo aftertaste, tangy fruity sweets and almost sugary feel.
Hint of white grape with the pips in.
Dark chocolate.
That black forrest gateau thing, chocolate, cake, and cherry liquour.
Tannin dryness.
Faintest smoke, like the Amarone wine I mentioned earlier.
Charcoal, but not the smoke, the actual coals.
Chocolate cake, but not black forest gateau this time.
Cocoa powder.
Gets a bit more bitter towards the end.
Black tea.
Faintest suggestion of fresh mint.
Hint of raspberry or strawberry. It was very faint so not very sure there.
Grape juice.
A few extra comments
Very full bodied and rich as is revealed by the thickness of the "legs", those little lines you get running down the inside of the glass after you swirl it around a bit. I tried to get a picture, but couldn't get it to some out very well. Take a look anyway. The legs were almost as thick as my own. It's rich almost to thew point of being chewy.
Can you see that line on the glass there? Not very well I'll wager. It's pretty thick and is actually on opposite side of the glass. I almost put that it was on the backside of the glass, but backside is a rude thing to say. Ha ha, backside. It means arse.
The wininess of the development is likely from the sherry. Sherry is a fortified wine and is made from all the same stuff as wine, so some winey tastes and smells are not surprising.
Scotch mist appeared, but only a faint haze. The scotch mist shows that it's not chill filtered, although not all non chill filtered whiskies have it. Chill filtered whiskies definitely don't have it.
Mint was a surprise, and I wanted to include how I discovered that it's a common taste in sherried whiskies. I work in a hotel and we recently hosted a local whisky club's 20th anniversary event. They'd invited a Scottish gentleman to do a whisky tasting for them. He turned out to be Fred Laing, the managing director of Douglas Laing the independent bottling company. I was all excited and really wanted to catch him to ask a few questions so I could do some serious name dropping on here and call it an interview, but it sadly wasn't to be. I did get a taste of the whisky he'd brought for the occasion. It was a 20 year old Blair Athol which Mr. Laing had chosen personally. It was very nice even though what I tasted had been in a glass with cling film over the top for 8 hours, and I will publish my tasting notes one day. Anyway, I didn't get to join in the tasting as I was supposed to be working, but I did get to eaves drop from outside the door and I overheard Mr. Laing pointing out a fresh mint taste and saying that it's quite common in a sherried whisky. So there you go.
I've decided it's well worth trying at least one glass with what seems like it should be too much water. I was going with one teaspoon for quite a while, which was very pleasant but adding another brought out a whole lot more complexity. With one teaspoon the brown sugar note dominated everything. It was interesting how it kept changing between demarera and light muscovado, but I think it masked other interesting smells and flavours.
Now to the tasting notes on the packaging. I've copied them here in my style, which I hope you can follow.
Nose
Incredible concentration of aromas.
Treacle toffee.
Chocolate orange.
Nutty notes.
Vanillla.
Palate
A very dynamic and full bodied dram.
Chewy.
Coffee.
Chocolate.
Treacle scones.
Finish
A veritable feast to enliven the senses.
I have to say I agree with their notes, but I would have added brown sugar and dried fruit, and I'm not sure about the treacle scones because I've never had one. It does indeed have an incredible concentration of aromas, and lot of body and complexity. I mentioned earlier that the tasting notes on whisky packaging have a kind of advertising slant, and they usually do, but I think if anything these guys have sold themselves short. There's so much more going on with this stuff than they could have space for on the label.
I think I was going to put something else here, but I forgot what it was.
Conclusion
For me a touch of peat smoke would make this whisky pretty close to perfect. Very pleasant, Lots of body, lots of complexity, very satisfying drink. Seems like a good quality maturation from what I can tell, like the complexity of the finish, the way it didn't change significantly over the first couple of days after opening the bottle. All in all a very pleasant whisky indeed. On the standard one to ten scale I'd have to say it's flippin' lovely. Truly marvelous stuff. Would I buy it again? Well, I didn't buy it in the first place. I'd be very happy to receive it as a gift again though. If I saw it I'd definitely be tempted to buy it, but as I said it's a limited batch so the price might be going up to crazy levels if you can even find it in a shop. I'd certainly check the price if I saw it. I definitely hope this bottle's not my last taste and I'll be looking out for other GlenDronach expressions to sample. Go buy it if you can and buy as much as you can afford. Then invite me over.
Well that's it. It was a long one. I hope I'm not going for quantity over quality, I certiainly don't want to do that. I'll try to be more concise next time, and once again I aim to get the next one done a bit sooner. I'm working on the Bunnahabhain Toiteach I've been mentioning in nearly every post I've made, but I might do the fancy Douglas Laing one first. I only had a little glass so the notes aren't too long. I should come up with a nice little sign off phrase, but I probably won't. Suggest one in the comments if you like, maybe I'll be inspired. Bye.
Edit: This costs about five hundred quid now. Bloody hell!
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