Finish: Now this is the part that surprised me a bit... In a good way because its quite long and interesting. The finish turns out to be quite dry with bittersweet blood orange, dry oak, creamy nuts, milk chocolate and the red fruits return too.

The first official bottlings of Glendronach 12 Year Old in the 1970s were originally single vintage bottlings from 1962, 1963 and 1964. These were bottled at 75 proof - 43%. However, the majority of these editions had very little or no sherry influence. They were often massive, waxy fruitbombs and frequently had a phenolic dimension as well, with smoke, ash and sooty notes quite common. It goes without saying that these were incredible whiskies, but they are utterly dissimilar to Glendronach 12 Year Old as we know it today.Matured solely in sherry casks, I was expecting a humdinger of a sherry bomb here. Surprisingly, I got something somewhat different. Regardless of whether the Service offers the functionality to contribute, you are solely responsible and liable for any content and information that you create, upload, post, publish, link to, duplicate, transmit, record, display or otherwise make available on the Service or to other Members, such as chat messages, text messages, videos, audio, audio recordings, music, pictures, photographs, text and any other information or materials, whether publicly posted or privately transmitted (“Contributions”).

Yet the modern Glendronach Original must have been made from steam-distilled spirit since around 2017. Evidently the change in spirit character was hidden or smoothed by sherry casks and skillful blending, and if they can balance that big of a change we’d imagine that the present challenge should be a doddle for someone as talented as Rachel Barrie. If there wasn’t an uproar after the seismic switch from coal to steam powered distillation, it seems unlikely that a change as relatively minor as chill filtration should make that much of a difference. If I’m reading all of this right, it would seem there’s been an information baby lost in the throwing out of the compliance bathwater. Perhaps the 43% ABV 12yo requires (and always has required) more filtering than the 46% ABV 15, 18 and 21-year-old siblings? But if so, why remove the SWA ‘non-compliant’ label from them all? Nose: without water a bit restrained. Big oak, dried brown spices and woodpolish. With a few drops all the flowery and fruity notes appear. The oak gets softer and the polish makes way for sweet raspberry jam, rose petals and some waxy raisin, creamy chocolate and hazelnut.There’s certainly been times when I’ve been there myself – almost spoiled – feeling like my musings and notes on decades old expressions are simply superior to those of more mundane expressions. It takes time (and countless tastings!) to put everything into perspective and to recognise the rich tapestry that exists at every level of the diverse world of whisky. As the old adage goes, if you don't know where you've been, you wont know where you're going. Before embarking on draconian measures, boycotts, tattoo removal etc, it might be best to consider that this is without a doubt the most minor change ever to occur in the history of this long-storied single malt whisky. Taste: A good level of viscosity and weight from 43% ABV – delivering a bigger, brighter and richer sherried experience. Raspberries, oranges, cherries and pears alongside raisins and sultanas – perhaps with a tarter element – unripe plums or rhubarb for example. Plenty of chocolate here, sitting with cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg and some dusty oak. Fairly one dimensional, but perfectly tasty all the same. Reduction (which is far from needed) dampens the spicing, but ripens the fruits, it also adds some oloroso nuttiness into the mix.

For international deliveries, including the USA, use the 'Change Location' link above to estimate prices and delivery costs in your local currency. Find out more about international delivery All whisky is filtered to a certain extent, with barrier-filtered whiskies often making their way into cask-strength bottlings. Not all chill-filtered whiskies are subject to the huge industrial and forceful filtration technique we associate with the blends and mass-market malts we all know. The definition of chill-filtration, in my opinion, potentially needs to be re-assessed as our knowledge of whisky grows and the whisky-making process is refined and altered as time goes on. Now I know that no chill filtration and 46% ABV isn’t the be-all and end-all in whisky. There are expressions out there that don’t meet these presentation standards but still deliver a great experience when tasting. GlenDronach has a laser-like focus on “richly sherried” single malts, and the whisky reviewed here, dubbed “The Original,” is aged for 12 years in a combination of Pedro Ximenez and Oloroso sherry casks. Glendronach 12 Year Old has survived the last forty-something years simply because Glendronach is a great distillery. In that time the 12 Year Old Glendronach has undergone all manner of changes - and we’ve not even mentioned the end of coal-fired distillation at Glendronach, which only happened in 2005 and will have had a hugely significant impact on the character of the spirit. Perhaps because that occurred before Billy Walker took over nobody cares?

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For starters… flavor. This stuff is great. I can’t attest to how much the PX finishing adds to the already sherried malt since I didn’t taste it before the finishing, but I can tell you that as it is now it’s fantastic and I honestly don’t know why more people aren’t talking about this stuff. It’s rich, it’s supple, it’s flavorful and because it’s not incredibly popular at the moment it’s relatively cheap. A tasty little gem from a distillery that flies under most folks radar… enjoy it while you can. GlenDronach 12 year Review It’s also undeniable that a great many of the previous bottlings from the 1980s and 1990s, while different to the Walker Glendronachs, are absolutely fantastic whiskies in their own right, however uninterested the paying public were at the time - and those are the whiskies that were almost certainly both chill filtered and coloured. I happened to have three GlenDronachs lying around tripping over each other, so lets compare, shall we?

Nose: Vanilla and dried fruit , honey , cereals and a citrusy edge. A lovely nose. Just like we like them! Palate : Creamy and rich . sherry goodness can definitely be found here. Lots of dried fruit , sweet honeyed and mouth coating. Very nice. Finish ; wood , spice (ginger) cocoa and chocolate, some nuttiness as well. Nose: A deep sherried pillow, stuffed with honey-soaked bananas and vanilla-poached peach skins, a duvet of sweetened carrots and lemon cake, and a marshmallow comforter blanket makes this a comfortable, warm and sleepy experience. Lots of chocolate candy notes in this one. But where is the sherry? I just am not getting it at all. This is honey and choccies. And it is smoooooth. I still want to try the 15, but I like this enough as it is to not feel the need to pull the trigger on the 18. Not yet anyway.

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Can I tell these apart? Sure. But can I tell if one has been processed differently from the other? Of course not.