Whisky : Glendronach 12 Year SMWS 96.24 “Sweet, warm and lively”

Country/Region : Scotland/Highland

ABV : 57.9%

Cask : Refill Ex-Bourbon Barrel

Age : 12 Years (Distilled 8 June 2006)

Nose :  Opens with the sweet burning aroma of sugar starting to caramelize and give way to rich buttery dulce de leche.  Toasty creme brûlée with a heavy dose of mellow wood spices and the sweet citrus of grapefruit.  It is hard to avoid the buttery characteristic of the nose, it keeps coming back as ghee, a freshly baked butter roll, or a Spanish roll—a sweet and salty Filipino pastry. 

Palate :  The butter comes through on the palate along with a bit of pastry creme, but is quickly run over by a heady bouquet of wood spice.  Wood notes dominate a hot palate— peppercorns, cinnamon, vanilla, brown sugar, and caramel.  The body is on the thinner side and lacks a whole lot of depth.

Finish :  Medium length sharpe spice and wet wood chips.

Score : 3

Mental Image : A greasy, stale, convenience store Spanish Roll.

Something Better : Cooley 14 Year; The Exclusive Malts (similar wood influence, additional complexity & body)

Something Similar : Westland American Oak (similar profile, more berries, longer finish)

Something Worse : Trader Joes Highland 10 Year (similar basic wood spice, less body, less finish)

Notes : Oi, this one missed the mark.  It was ranked last on just about every list at our local whisky tasting.

The dram sounded like a good idea— a cask strength Glendronach aged in a refill ex-bourbon barrel— what an excellent opportunity to taste a less cask influenced Glendronach.  We are so accustomed to sherry bomb Glendronachs that none of us were quite certain what the base spirit is really like, how would it shine without loads of sherry dominating the palate?

Well I still could not tell you what Glendronach is really like… neither could I relate to you a Glendronach that I have found really memorable.  This was eminently palatable— but it seemed entirely dominated by the influence of the cask.  The nose on it was excellent with the different buttery pastry notes giving it a lot of complexity to sift through.  Unfortunately little of that complexity carried over and the palate was all just almost entirely oaky wood spices and sugars.  It was not bad, but it was not terribly striking or memorable.

Maybe Glendronach is best aged in sherry— maybe it just goes together like peanut butter and jelly.