Glen Garioch 15: The Renaissance – Chapter I [For Real this Time]

Thanks to /u/throzen for bringing this dram to our latest tasting (that I’ve written up).

So I’m in a bar in Dublin a year ago, and they don’t have the Irish whiskey I wanted. So I order a Scotch. The bartender isn’t that well trained. Based on the alcohol percentage, and me being very full (food was great) and maybe drunk (did I not mention I was in Dublin?), I write it down all funny like.

Thus I assume that I reviewed Glen Garioch 15: The Renaissance – Chapter I. When I get back, somehow the LCBO has stock of both Chapter II and I. No, I didn’t say that incorrectly, they released Chapter II first, because fuck Ontario.

So I buy the one I haven’t had, to share with people. I am one of those people who actually like the fact that Glen Garioch is unpeated.

During another tasting, I try Chapter II. And it tastes the same, to the note, of Chapter I. Quietly I make a note that I screwed up. So when, during the most recent tasting, I get a chance to retry Glen Garioch 15: The Renaissance – Chapter I, I take it.

End of the day? I was wrong, and have updated my website. So that also means we need a review of Glen Garioch 15: The Renaissance – Chapter I.

What is Glen Garioch 15: The Renaissance – Chapter I? That’s probably what you came here to read about, and not my inability to believe someone who is bad at their job.

In the mid 90s, when music was going to hell, Glen Garioch decided they’d take a break. Probably because who wants to work to boy bands? I mean, really?

Oh, no, they switched up their method of malting their barley. They went from peating the whisky to not. Suntory took over during this period. And while I checked malt madness, they make it seem like their wasn’t an official release on what exactly happened, save the malting floors stopped being used in 1994, and then the whiskies were unpeated.

However anyone who tastes the whisky before and after this shutdown (1995-1997) note the lack of peat.

Thus the Glen Garioch 15: The Renaissance – Chapter I is celebrating the first, older whisky to come after the shutdown. There will be four chapters. The third chapter came out last October, and I’m assuming it’ll come to the LCBO eventually.

But we’re here to discuss Chapter 1. A cask strength, non-chill filtered, non coloured whisky made up of ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks. So now that we have the right whisky and name, let’s see how it tastes, shall we?

Price: $144.95 CAD at the LCBO

Region: Highland

Number of Bottles: 12,000

Cask Types: ex-Bourbon and ex-Sherry casks

Abv: 51.9%

Colour: 7.5YR 6/8

Nose: Orange, raspberry, grape leaf, oak, zucchini bread

At first it’s somewhat close to the Chapter II, which makes me concerned that I’m going crazy. However this has more funk, more vegetal notes, and thus I’m not thinking I’m crazy.

In this case. With this particular whisky. Probably.

Taste: Cinnamon, crackers, caramel, cereal, floral

Nice cinnamon, cereal, and caramel notes. Just a bit of floral on the edges of it.

Nice mouthfeel. Tastes like cinnamon crackers, and I’m a sucker for that. Water is needed to find more of the floral elements.

Finish: Cracker, honeydew, dry pear, glue, coconut oil, grass, vanilla

More cereal, and then some off notes at the end. It’s dry, finishes off nice, with lots of grassy elements. You need to give it some time to get past the rough notes on this one. It tastes okay, then note, then back to okay.

Which if it wasn’t already taken, the name Loki would have made sense for this whisky.

Conclusion: All in all, I enjoyed this whisky because of the cinnamon. And some of the nose. I had to look back at my score after the fact and lower it, because I realized I was being a bit too excited to have cinnamon crackers as a flavour.

Going back to Chapter II, I think it’s more complex than Chapter I. That said, both are good whiskies. I’m one of those lucky people who didn’t like peat in my Highlands. Yes, that’s basically blasphemy, but I’m an agnostic atheist so I’m used to it.

80/100

Scotch review #857, Highland review #139, Whisky Network review #1376