Last night dram of the BTC 2017 was a nasty surprise from the organizers. Nasty as who would have think of a handfill (!!!) from Glenfiddich distillery (!!!!), no less and no more! As expected, nobody managed to guess the distillery. It was a good dram and it reaffirms my belief from my two last Glenfiddich reviews (here and here) that they should stop chill filtering and bottle in higher strength.
And how did I do with my guess? I got points for region as it was clearly a Speyside offering and totally missed on the ABV. I kind of screwed up on the age guess. I felt it’s low to mid teens offering (I have witnesses for this claim!), but I over thought it and thought maybe it’s younger cask with a mature profile, so guessed too low instead of getting another 30-40 points.
Glenfiddich 15 Year Old Handfilled Batch #47 (56.9%)
Pic of a similar batch. Credit: whiskybase.com
Nose: Smooth but also hides lots of energy below the surface, honey, quite a restrained nose. Then fruitiness shows up (still somewhat muted) with pears, apricot and peaches, citrus inner (bitter) peels, bubble gum (think bazooka), cinnamon and nuts. With time fruitier. Continue reading
Nose: Smoky. sweet oak, tons of burnt wood smoke, ashes in the background, some special cask or maybe a heavily recharred/toasted cask? reminds me a single cask virgin oak Octomore. 
Nose: Rich and oily, lots of sweet malt and vanilla along with fairy big earthy peat note. And after a while there’s also a distinctive smoky note, honey, salt, some tropical fruits. 
Nose: Sweet, some caramel and somewhat artificial sweetener sweetness at first that died with time, dried fruit and berries tends to sour, weak sour oak spices, smoke and peat after a while, red berries and cherries filled milk chocolate.
Nose: Pears, very minerally (assuming it’s partially due to high ABV), honey, hints of greenery, green fruit and ginger. With water: more honey and pears and less minerals and slowly developing nuttiness. 
Nose: Young and malty. Then sweet peat with gentle smoke, honey, some Ardbeg fruitiness, pears. Getting smokier after a while with newly developed ashes note. 
Nose: At first it smells young relatively to its age with strong malt, barley and vanilla notes. Then we some sherry notes joins the party in the form of a sweet dried fruit topping . After a few minutes the dried fruit gets stronger and are joined by mellow cinnamon, nutmeg, red currants and milk chocolate. With water: more vanilla and malt, milk chocolate, some ‘straight’ fruitiness with almost no dried fruit. 
Nose: Soft, starting with salt, meat, seaweed, honey and then then peat and bonfire smoke, a bit of tar, very maritime! 
Whisky Gospel 