The fourth and almost final whisky of the Twitter Tasting turned out to be a Glen Scotia. Glen Scotia is a bit of a hit & miss distillery for most people, but the last couple of years there have been some solid hits across the board from a lot of different bottlers. SMWS and Kintra come to mind.

Usually seen as Campbeltown’s ‘other’ distillery, it didn’t have much of a reputation of its own until a few years ago when there were some indie bottlings starting to pop up. It’s a bit of an ugly duckling with the distillery being a pure factory, without allowing visitors in (and therefore, no reason to polish the stills, for example).

With the revamp of their bottles last year into some eye catchingly ugly designs they are getting some more attention. Not only because of the designs you cannot miss, but also since they have fair priced official bottlings that supposedly taste very good (this is a hint, Glen Scotia, send me samples!)

The new range from Glen Scotia

Glen Scotia 21 by Douglas Laing’s Old Particular

Sniff:
It starts of rather light and fruity with quite some oak. It turns more heavy and mature with a scent of beurre noisette, or burnt butter. Then I got cigars, red and black berries. The oak becomes more prominent but not in a dominating way. Furniture polish, old leather, very posh. I also get lacquer and varnish and the plastic bag that dried fruits come in at the supermarket.

Sip:
Gentle with white pepper and dried fruits. Sweet, leathery and wine gums. The posh oak and leather armchair feeling is back. A very deep flavour in a very gentlemanly way.

Swallow:
Again sweet with a lot of good oak influence. A tad plasticy like that dried fruits bag or a wine gum bag. Some sherry too I’d guess.

This is friggin’ awesome. An absolutely delicious whisky that made my wish list immediately. There’s so much going on in such a gentle but fierce way (if such a thing is even possible). A lot of very old fashioned posh flavours. An absolute stunner and the highlight of the evening to me.

Glen Scotia 21, 51.5%, Douglas Laing’s Old Particular

Again, thanks to Steve Rush and Douglas Laing for the samples and the tasting!