Not that I am a Glengoyne Cask Owner, unfortunately, but I did manage to get a sample of it. I like trading samples for exactly that reason. Getting rare and sometimes obscure stuff to taste without having to track down a bottle and trade it for a kidney. These things can be quite expensive!

Nose:
Thick, greasy sherry on the nose, with a huge amount of oak. There’s a slight hint of sulphur, but nothing unsettling. Also flint, juicy raisins, grapes and hazelnut. Some cocoa and dried plums. Quite the nose, but not too sherried. I find that sometimes to be the case with Glengoyne, but this one is in great balance with wood and enough whisky-like flavors to keep me going.

Taste:
Pretty sharp, and again the juicy fruits with sugary syrup. Dried peaches and plums, some chili pepper heat. It goes more gentle pretty quickly, which is nice. It brings the flavours 0ut better.

Finish:
The finish is quite long, and has more notes of juicy fruit. Peaches, grapes, raisins, that kind of stuff. Not necessarily dried. Also a lot of wood that shows a bit of the age (it’s 18 after all).

A very tasty dram, like I always hope from Glengoyne. I expected I would find this over sherried, but that wasn’t the case at all. There’s a lot of sherry action going on, really a lot, but the spirit shines through nicely, with more fruity and wood flavours than I expected.

Glengoyne 18, Cask Owner, OB, Sherry cask #619, 55.2%, about € 80 (which would be very nice for a single cask Glengoyne!)