GlenDronach 17 1994 Single Cask

Thanks to /u/devoz for pouring me a sample of this.

Let’s take a nostalgia trip, shall we?

You’ll see people talk about GlenDronach with much happiness. And then there’s some other whisky geeks who seem to get kinda sad when they come up.

Why is that? Is it because they stopped peating their whisky back in 2002, probably in a pact with the devil? Maybe. But it’s more likely they remember a time when GlenDronach single casks were plentiful, great drams that they enjoyed drinking. And were inexpensive.

So since then, while some have celebrated the 12 and 15 coming back, there’s those of us who see the prices of our cask strength, nicely sherried, old whiskies going higher and higher, with younger and younger age, and we’re too busy throwing canes at kids on our lawn to really be loud enough to complain.

Enter GlenDronach 17 1994 Single Cask, the last one we’ve had for… I don’t know, awhile maybe? Most of us hide these from one another to surprise it at a tasting.

So let’s see if we can be nostalgia, or rather, how this tastes, shall we?

Price: Sold out

Region: Highland

Date Distilled: 11/11/1994

Date Bottled: 08/2012

Cask Type: Oloroso Sherry Puncheon

Cask Number: 1503

Bottle Number: 488/671

Abv: 54.9%

Colour: 7.5YR 4/8

Nose: Strawberry cream, plum, orange, dough, papaya

Nice strawberry and cream to start. Nice amounts of fruit, some dough (think a light amount of Irish whiskey showing up and then disappearing).

Once I added water I was hoping for some spice or maybe some more butter/dough. However I get some tropical fruit, and that’s about it. Hmm.

Taste: Strawberry puree, gravel, apple, ginger

More fruit, just a bit of earth. It’s a bit rough, though water makes that more ginger. And apple.

So we’ve lost the different fruits from before and gained the lighter of the spices (once water showed up). So less complexity, but we’re getting more of something. So that’s good.

Finish: Orange pulp, sulfur, mushroom, sour broughton, gravel

Wow that’s a lot of earth. Like mushrooms? Do I have a whisky for you! Ignore the fruit, trust me.

Still creamy, but earth is the main aspect here, like most Sci-fi movies.

Conclusion: Rough earth. Very rough at times. There’s fruit, and I went into this hoping for a fruit/spice mixture, and instead I ended up with… a lot of earth, mixed with fruit.

I think this shows my bias against Oloroso at times. I wish it was PX… Alright that’s not fair. It certainly takes that umami/mushroom thing and runs with it. Frankly if you love that, you’ll be happy. The fruit almost shouldn’t be there.

78/100

Scotch review #1010, Highland review #171, Whisky Network review #1585