Glenburgie 27 1983 Signatory Cask Strength

Thanks to /u/Saba007 for this sample!

If you’ve been following either my reviews or more importantly, /u/devoz‘s reviews on reddit, you’ll notice a distillery that sounds like it was made up by a show in which a man describes all the women he dated to his kids, Glenburgie.

So far devoz has been the main dealer for all of my Glenburgies. He understood the ebb and flow of distilleries better than I did, and took a chance. And very much like that one Abba song, he was first in line, and sometimes calls his whisky honey.

I’m not 100% sold or not sold on the distillery, however that just means I need to try more. And luckily today I’m doing just that, Glenburgie 27 1983 Signatory Cask Strength. The oldest Glenburgie I’ve tried yet, and this one comes from two ex-bourbon hogsheads.

I think I prefer sherry casks or gordas with Glenburgie, however I’m not sure yet. Let’s see how this tastes, shall we?

Price: Not available at the LCBO

Region: Speyside

Distilled: 1983

Bottled: 2011

Total bottles: 405 bottles

Cask Numbers: 9817 & 9818

Cask Type: Two Ex-bourbon hogsheads

Abv: 50.1%

Colour: 10YR 7/10

Nose: Coconut, mango, cherries, honeycrisp apple/apple syrup, oatmeal

Initial nose is closer to a virgin cask Scotch than an ex-bourbon, however it eventually has this immense amount of clean, apple flavours.

I have to ask then: Where’s the funk? I didn’t come here for clean fun? What is this, Atlantic City? We’ve seen what happens when someone who touts Atlantic City takes over things people, I don’t want clean fun. Give me Montreal with it’s corruption and fun! So far my expectations are met with apples, and apples ain’t what I wanted.

Taste: Apple sauce, coconut oil, cinnamon, caramel, grapefruit

More apples. Cooked apples at least. We’re back from apple picking. So that’s better. And to it’s clean credit, there’s a lot of complimentary flavours here, with autumnal times being the main theme.

So we’re not apple picking anymore, more so cooking with grandma. Or hipsters. And I think hipsters have sex, so that’s something kinda dirty.

What I’m saying is there’s more clean flavours going on here.

Finish: White bread, oak, oat muffin, butter, baked apple, brown sugar, heather

Finish steps up the clean fun and goes from cooking tasty apple sauce to making apple pie. Which can be dirty. Or if you do it too much, lead to diabetes.

Lots of brown sugar, more clean apple, and more cereal. It’s nice, complementary flavours.

Conclusion: An interesting dram, but way too much apple and cereal, and missing that funk I love in Glenburgie. And I think this comes down to how you feel about drams from distilleries.

What I’ve really, really enjoyed in past Glenburgies was two things: The amount of flavours and that crazy funk. This had the amount of flavours, and those flavours certainly got together. However the funk was missing,which, like my constant need to write otherwise the ghosts of my Ancestors will rise up and clog up the lines at frozen yogurt shops, needs to be there, otherwise I’m sad

Curses used to be more creative.

So there was too much cereal and apple for me to really, really love it. However if the above flavours are your thing, you’ll probably want more of this than your liver can handle (drink responsibly folks).

83/100

Scotch review #842, Speyside review #241, Whisky Network review #1354