Another Old Particular from Douglas Laing that arrived here is Glen Garioch 21 Year Old and it was the top of the line offering before getting sold out. It was distilled back in September 1995, just before it was mothballed for a few years so it’s a precious old liquid from an age long gone. It was then aged in refill hogshead and bottled in November 2016. Total of 290 bottles were produced.

Old Particular Glen Garioch 21 Year Old (51.5%, DL11471, £85.49/500NIS)

Nose: Sugar barley, perhaps a wee whiff of peat smoke as it went and never came back, fruity with pears and apples, ginger, almonds and nuts, quite fresh with undercurrent of rich flavour bomb, meadow and hay distilled into oil. With additional time in the glass more nuttiness and cooked cinnamon and becoming oily and fruity (somewhat perfume) with a touch of ginger. Continue reading →

I was preoccupied with other things, so today we have a quick post with tasting notes of a bit weird (in a good way I promise you) Glen Garioch. It’s a 1991 distillate, bottled in 2015 as part of the Small Batch series of WM Cadenhead.

There were 444 bottles produced of this Glen Garioch and it was bottled at 54.4%.

Glen Garioch 23 Year Old Cadenhead Small Batch 54.4%, £81.79/€129,99)

Nose: Spicy, very dusty as many other Glen Garioch whiskies, crisp ex-bourbon, honey, pickles (!) and after it opens up a bit, peat smoke which isn’t a big surprise being a pre-1995 distillate.

Palate: Sour, lots of peat smoke, honey, fruity sweet with pears on the front, pepper, a touch of ginger, oak dryness and as expected, dusty.

Finish: Medium length, lingering peat smoke , drying, traces of pickles vinegar, sweet honey, pepper. Dusty (doh!) Continue reading →

Glen Garioch aren’t sitting on their hands basking in the success of the 1998 Wine Cask Matured release earlier this year (which was a mystery blind dram and I loved it a lot!) and two months ago released a new limited edition: Glen Garioch The Renaissance 15 year old.

This release is the first of 4 limited (and exclusive) editions (15, 16, 17 & 18 year olds) to be released annually, aptly named Glen Garioch Renaissance Collection which is here to celebrate the new house character that Glen Garioch took after the re-opening in 1997 following the purchase of Morrison Bowmore by Suntory. As such, all whisky was distilled after 1997 to reflect the new distillery style.

This initial release was matured bourbon and sherry casks for 15 years and only 12,000 bottles were produced. Do they keep striking gold?  Continue reading →

A few weeks ago Glen Garioch posted a public broadcast call to whisky bloggers offering them to register for a chance to taste an upcoming  new Glen Garioch whisky. This is quite the reverse of the standard situation where it’s usually us the bloggers who chase the distilleries for samples 🙂

I registered of course and completely forgot about it until a package showed up at my door few days ago:  Continue reading →

Time for my first Glen Garioch and first Cadenhead notes on the blog. This one also came through samples swap I did with friends who likes this one very much.

This Glen Garioch is an ex-bourbon cask and like all Cadenhead bottlings, it’s been color-free and non-chilled filtered.

Cadenhead Glen Garioch 21yo 1991 (53.7%, ex-Bourbon cask, 216 bottles, buy here for €77.5)

Continue reading →