How is it, that without any indication a market can get fed up with a certain brand of whisky? I think that’s more or less what’s happening with mid-nineties (and younger) GlenDronach.

Every year the distillery releases about two batches of single casks and a couple of years you had to run to get some bottles of them. Now that might still be the case with the older whiskies, but the younger ones are still taking up shelf space.

Strangely, the WhiskyNerds bottling sold out almost instantly last year, but the Whiskybase one, which came a few months later is getting dusty in the shop. They’re going so far as giving you a fairly sizeable discount on it when you buy it (10% at the moment).

It might also be partly due to the ever increasing price of GlenDronach. Currently a more or less 20 year old should fetch € 150, while that was only € 90 some five years ago.

Anyway, I think GlenDronach should appeal to all people who still love Macallan for their old releases, where they actually used proper sherry casks. They were widely known for that, although you can barely get one nowadays without spending hundreds and hundreds of euros. Suddenly GlenDronach doesn’t seem so bad!

Sniff:
Pretty rich, ‘real’ sherry on the nose. Dates and dried plums. Lots of fruit. Surprisingly spicy for a PX bottling too, maybe because of the puncheon instead of a butt? Something quite heavy is there too, like the leather and rubber of sneakers.

Sip:
The palate is spicy but also with lots of fruit. Quite sharp but not overly so. Peach, apricot, dates and some oaky bitterness.

Swallow:
The finish is similar but also adds a note of beef. Like steak and ale pie. Rich and long.

On one hand this whisky does everything you would expect a mid-nineties GlenDronach to do with lots of dried fruits and slightly spicy sherry notes. On the other hand there’s a surprising amount of that spice and the shoe like notes on the palate and a beefy flavor on the finish.

Those added flavors make it slightly more interesting than I would have expected. Most GlenDronachs are quite predictable in their heavy and fruity sherry flavors. Luckily this ones does that and a bit more. I prefer it that way, so there’s something left to discover.

Recommended.

88/100

GlenDronach 19 years old, 20/09/1995 – 08/2015, PX Sherry Puncheon 3804, 54.2% – Available only at Whiskybase for (at the moment) € 135

Thanks to Whiskybase for sending the sample!