Review 89: Glenfiddich 21 Yr

Review 89

7/15/12

Glenfiddich 21: 40% abv

Well, here’s the conclusion, about a month later. You must understand, I’ve been very busy, as my car has exploded on me and I spent most of last week acquiring a new car. Glenfiddich doesn’t care about that though. What they care about is a redemption after their 18 year flop. And they’ll get that. Not to give any spoilers, but this is much better than last time. The 21 takes a completely different approach, using Caribbean rum casks instead of sherry and bourbon casks, which is good. That mixes up their lineup a little more. Not that you’ll ever buy this, because it’ll cost you too much just to finance this bottle. 

Okay, so onto the bottling itself. Obviously, at 21 years old, this is an old whiskey, but maybe not as old as you’d think. Some experts say that these spirits reach maturity at 25 years of age. What do we think about this particular one? Well let’s talk about it. You’ll not be able to tell, but there was some slight sediment in the bottle when we were drinking it. That might suggest they didn’t over filter it, but that’s just a guess. 

The nose is defined and easy, containing the standard malt flavors, malt, caramel, etc. But more importantly, there is a slight graininess of wheat, coupled with some hints of hay and oak. There are many fruity notes, including over-ripe apple, slight pear, light lemon, ripe banana, and maraschino cherries. There is hints of toffee, pine scent, and after water, even some fresh mint. We were pleasantly intrigued by the complexities of the nose, although it didn’t have the full-bodied nose that we come to love. 

Continuing on with the taste, we found a prominent syrupy texture and taste, which was unique to the Glenfiddich line. Once again, probably thanks to that rum-like background, we see ourselves visiting fruity flavors. Aforementioned flavors include cherry in the body, green apples, and lemon. The maltiness is still there, but the spicy notes come out more, including ginger, nutmeg, and cinnamon. There are more unique flavors, with some sweet honey smoothing out this whiskey. After water, you might even find something resembling the taste of cookie dough. Like I said, this is unique, and not in a bad way. 

The finish won’t disappoint, sticking with the common themes mentioned before, but pulling out some molasses, hay, tobacco, agave, blackberry, powdered sugar, slight briny salt, and parsley. So this particular whiskey wins points on uniqueness. Water will also pull out the rum like flavors from the whiskey, and even at 40%, it takes water alright. Not really what I’d say worth the buy, but it certainly does alright, and proves to be complex and well rounded. 

Score: 9.0/10

Review 87: Glenfiddich 18 Yr

Review 87

6/30/12

Glenfiddich 18 Year Old: 43% abv

I know what you’re thinking: Oh boy. Good old KCM told us that higher percent alcohol content means more flavor, and nicer whiskey and we’ll love this one. And you’re probably thinking also: oh, this is OLDER and it looks DARKER, so it must be BETTER. Well, you are wrong on all accounts. Yes, higher alcohol content is generally associated with more flavor and complexity, but that doesn’t necessarily have to be true. There is a lot of stipulations to generalization about alcohol, so don’t be fooled. 

Secondly, there is an assumption that darker whiskey is always going to taste better than lighter whiskey. This is also not true. Most companies will put caramel colorant (don’t get excited, it’s flavorless) in their whiskeys, because they “know” you’re stupid and will buy it for just that reason. Finally, there is no rule that says older whiskey is better whiskey. Older whiskey is just that; older. So it is different. As whiskey ages more, it starts to lose the characteristics of the spirit and gain the characteristics of the wood. Don’t assume your money is well spent. And that brings us to this review. The more expensive, older of the Glenfiddich range, and therefore the better one. And we plan on proving that in our notes. 

This one is a Single Malt Scotch aged in Oloroso Sherry casks and Bourbon casks. The nose on this sucker will give you some fruity notes of blueberry and light ripe banana, but primarily gives you those classic notes like caramel, vanilla, slight maltiness, with the addition of more rare notes of butterscotch and cloves. Ahh, you see! That whole introduction about horrible whiskey was all a facade! No...it wasn’t. 

The taste can be depicted as flat and dull. It is a malty whiskey, with a large saltiness in the body, a little bit of black licorice, slight tartness, and this inexplicably artificial cherry taste. It is a sweet cherry, but like cough syrup artificial. Not okay. That’s all we really got out of it. The finish doesn’t get better. The salt dominates, with cherry and honey, slight maltiness, and a tiny hint of sherry at the end. The finish is medium-short, which I’m okay with, because I wasn’t missing much. Sorry, we wanted to like this whiskey, but it doesn’t pull through, and we wouldn’t waste the $80 it costs to get this. Highly UNrecommended. 

Score: 6.0/10

Review 85: Glenfiddich 15 Yr Distillery Edition

Review 85

7/22/12

Glenfiddich 15 Year Old Distillery Edition: 51% abv

Before we move onto the 18 Year Old, we want to take a visit to a different version of the 15 year old Scotch. This one is only slightly different, being ONLY 11% more alcohol than the regular. Oh, and instead of using three different types of casks, this one uses two casks: American and European oak. Its always important to understand what high proof alcohols really mean. One last thing to note about this whiskey. This one is non-chill filtered, which means it has not been sent through a filter to get rid the haze in the color. We like this kind of thing because chill filtration is said to hinder some of the flavor. Does all this really make a difference, or are we just speaking mumbo jumbo about this stuff? Let’s take a look. 

The nose is huge in flavor, but if you’re not careful, it can burn quite a bit as well. It has nice, dark, rich flavors of caramel, vanilla, malt, oak, chocolate, hazelnut, and molasses. You will get some sweeter, but tart notes of green apple, and cherry, and even so much as a delicate smokiness once you dig into it more. There is still some light sherry that we can normally find in Glenfiddich. The nose will either repulse you or excite you, but I urge you not to let the potency of the aroma scare you off. You’re close to the taste by now, so don’t give up! 

The taste is dry, and most of the burn will hit you in the arrival. This Scotch is definitely malty, and grainy. Barley and wheat are large contenders in the battle for your attention, but don’t let that take all of your focus. Caramel, vanilla, sherry, honey, and oak all give some flavor to this malt, as well as some spicy cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg. We even noted baked red apple in the flavor. Don’t worry, I’m drooling just thinking about it myself. This Scotch, being at 51% can take some water, so don’t be too shy with it. This helps mellow the flavor out a bit, as well as bringing out earthier tones. The taste is spicy with a huge presence in the arrival. It swells at the end of the body. The finish is medium-long, and prominent while it lasts. This is where the sherry really comes to light, showing nice sweetness. There is maltiness and cinnamon in the finish, along with fruity notes of honeydew, strawberry pear, and cherry. Some fresh mint exists in the finish, but there’s a more prominent saltiness which competes with the sweet malt flavor. 

With time and water, this Scotch will open up and become sweeter. It takes water well and depicts a great flavor profile. This is very enjoyable, and well made Scotch, and does better by night and day than the regular production level Glenfiddichs. Highly recommended. 

Score: 9.0/10

Review 83: Glenfiddich 15 Yr

Review 83

7/18/12

Glenfiddich 15 Year Old: 40% abv

The next Glenfiddich in our Glenfiddich series, and this time we’ll start talking about how to pronounce Glenfiddich. If you’re saying it like it looks, with a “ch”, you’re saying it wrong. Glenfiddich is pronounced “Glenfiddick”, so now you know. But this is going to be a review of lessons, because there are several things we have never talked about. Let’s start with the oak barrels. The oak used in the production of this whiskey is a combination of sherry oak, bourbon, and new oak. This creates a lot of blends of flavors. 

Secondly, let’s talk about Solera vats. No, Microsoft Word, it isn’t a spelling error. Solera systems are where whiskey gets put in the top while whiskey is pulled out of the bottom of the vat, so there is a constant filter of whiskey, and there’s always a refreshed mix of whiskey in the vat. What does that mean for the taste? We really don’t know. And it really doesn’t matter, because we’re here to figure that out anyway. That’s our Glenfiddich lesson for the day. 

Onto the nose: We get a fruity collage in this whiskey, with red wine, cranberry, maraschino cherries, raspberries and raisons, not to be displaced by the standards of caramel, vanilla, molasses, and maltiness. The nose also contains some powdered sugar to add to the sweetness, but a contrast of lemon that flips the coin in flavor. I’m actually cheating and previewing the 18 Year Old as we speak...Don’t tell. The taste is something else entirely...but not really. Malt is a prevalent part of this whiskey, followed by molasses, barley, saltiness, and caramel. We actually noted a slight peatiness, although it’s only very subtle. There is also cinnamon heat and a tiny bourbon influence in the taste. Overall, it isn’t the most complex Scotch we’ve ever experienced in taste. It is rather dry though. Hell, this might be a shorter review than I thought. The finish is dry, with some major lemon tartness to start, followed by some cherry and lime to boot. The citrus and tart notes get more potent with the addition of water, but you’ll also find some sherry, cinnamon, caramel, butterscotch, salt, and even a slight vegetal quality to the whiskey on the finish. 

We even went so far as to notice slight orange to it. To be honest, this doesn’t take leaps and bounds above the 12 Year Old, but it does make some strides. It might be an “optimistic” score for this one, but we decided this was the most appropriate. 

Score: 9.0/10

Review 81: Glenfiddich 12 Yr

Review 81

7/11/12

Glenfiddich 12 Year: 40% abv

Glenfiddich. If you knew we were doing Scotches, you’d probably have guessed this was coming. This is one of the biggest, and well known Scotch distilleries in the World, pioneering single malt production around the WWII time period. Glenfiddich is a Speyside malt, but that’ll get delved into deeper in other reviews. Don’t want to get nerdy with the historical references, but just for the context, most companies regarded global spread of single malts was foolish, so you kind of owe Glenfiddich at least one bottle of purchase for allowing Scotch to be widely available on a global scale. 

The real question, though, is if their volume of production has influenced the quality of their spirit. What we’re reviewing today is their flagship Scotch, the 12 Year Old. Yeah, he’s the young one in the bunch, but Glenfiddich threw this Scotch in a bourbon cask and a sherry butt before bottling it. Stop your giggling! (A “butt” is a type of tall, skinny oak cask made from European Oak; it is the most commonly used type of cask for sherry wine) Now that we’ve got your immaturity under control, let’s move forward. Enough of the babbling; what does this son-of-a-gun taste like? 

Well, we started with the nose, which gives off some interesting, but limited flavors of malt, vanilla, cherry, sherried oak, and a hint of salt. We had some questions, but we feel there is a slight influence of hot cinnamon in the nose as well. The taste luckily gives you more to bite off of. The taste is sweet with molasses and vanilla, but also contributing defined spiciness of cinnamon and ginger as well. There is a tangy note which becomes more prominent with water, revealing some mix of orange and lemon. Finally, and you’ll hear this from everybody, but there is some pear, and even some apple to this whiskey. It isn’t until the finish that you’ll get a stronger sherry presence. 

Not like Macallan 12, but this definitely has a sweet hay taste in the finish, coupled with some grainy oatmeal and caramel. You still get those fruity notes that carry through, with some red apple and pear, and a nice cinnamon residual at the end. The finish is medium-long so you get to enjoy it a bit. Overall, we prefer this over Glenlivet’s 12 Year Scotch, but they’re really worlds apart. That being said, this isn’t the best Scotch out there, and you should definitely keep different ones. 

Score: 8.0/10