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Fahrenheit 173 - Whisky

"The king o' drinks, as I conceive it, Talisker, Isla or Glenlivit"   (R.L. Stevenson)

Four single cask Oloroso matured Glendronachs

 9 Dec 2010  

Last weekend I visited the "Whisky Ship" in Zürich and collected lots of tast­ing notes as well as sev­eral samples of whisky to try at home. Here follows the first batch of tast­ing notes from that trip: a flight of Oloroso matured Glendronachs:

Glendronach 1993 cask 528, 16 y.o. (61.7%):
Fragrant, sherried, very nice nose with notes of honey, gin­ger­bread, orange and turpentine. Rather nice palate: rich, sweet and spicy, de­velops a note of pepper­mint. Fairly oaky finish, dry and slightly dis­ap­point­ing. (88 p)

Glendronach 1993 cask 529, 17 y.o. (60.5%):
Very similar to cask 528 but it's less spicy, milder and more complex (which is nice) but it also has a slight note of perfume. (88 p)

Glendronach 1990 cask 2621, 20 y.o. (57.9%):
Interesting, rather nice nose with notes of caramelized sugar, vanilla and oak, also a little flowery. Rich, dry, oaky palate with gin­ger­bread, dried fruits (plums, raisins) and pepper­mint. Nice and complex yet too dry and oaky. Dry, very oaky finish. (86 p)

Glendronach 1990 cask 1241, 20 y.o. (49.8%):
Quite sherried yet fresh nose with honey, caramelized sugar, linseed oil and oak. Rich, spicy, quite oaky palate with honey, orange marmalade and gin­ger­bread. Nice yet a little too dry and oaky. Nice finish with gin­ger­bread and pepper­mint. (Bottled for Lateltin, Switzerland) (87 p)

There were sev­eral more, older single cask Glendronachs available at the whisky fair but at this point I kind of lost interest. The two 20 year olds were too oaky for me and I suspected that the older ones would be even oakier...

First fill sherry casks can impart lovely flavours but the whisky should be bottled before the oak takes over. I really like the standard Glendronach 15 and the two 1993:s described here are of the same quality. In fact, I find that the Glendronach 18 is already over the hill!

Related links:
All my tast­ing notes on Glendronach single malt
Glendronach dis­til­lery homepage

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