Single Malt
Scotland
Sherry
If sherried single malt is very much your thing, then The Glendronach is a name you should get to know very well. The distillery resides in the Highlands, busily working away on some incredible expressions, with sherried malt sitting at the core of many of them. This particular dram, The GlenDronach 12 Year Old, is aged in a combination of oloroso and Pedro Ximénez casks from Spain, resulting in generous helpings of dried fruit and cakey spice. The Glendronach's core range was treated to a smart new makeover in 2024, and doesn't it look elegant?
Rich cereals, struck match, raisin, cinnamon, caramelised sugar. Opens with some sweeter PX and lots of delicious raw ginger before becoming creamier with hazelnuts.
Fruits, peels, buttery. Pain au chocolat, a little marmalade on toast before becoming firmer and nuttier with spiced raisins.
Smoky toffee and nut brittle.
I recently got the Glendronach 15 Revival thinking it would be like the 12 but richer and better. I was massively let down. The 12 is so much better. A lot of times the 12 year barrels are perfect and thats why they stop aging them. On the flipside the 15 year barrels weren't good enough when they were at the 12 year marker. Meaning the extra 3 years doesn't make up for the lack of quality. Doing an A B comparison I found the 12 year to be 20 percentage points higher than the 15 year. Its absolutely delicious.
Having enjoyed drinking whisky all my adult life I have finally found a whisky which ticks all the boxes.
