When you happen to find something like this in the back of your cupboard, your heart skips a beat. There was so much awesome whisky in the seventies, that has now gotten so expensive that it’s a true rarity for a mere mortal like myself.

Initially I didn’t look the whisky up on ‘the base’ so I didn’t know it was from the Diamonds series. If I had known that I might have approached it differently and with even more reverence than I did now.

Of course, expectations are insanely high when pouring such a dram. That also makes for the risk of it not living up to and unrealistically high bar. Although, I strongly doubt that would have been the case with this…

Image from Whiskybase

Sniff:
Very mature, timid. As if this dram knows it has nothing to prove, or at least doesn’t have to try that hard to impress. There’s a lot of ‘thrift store’ in here. So old furniture and books, with hints of leather and wax. Dried apples, scones, cream. There’s some other spices that I have only found in old whisky like this. Like shammy leather, but not the smoky kind that Port Ellen sometimes has.

Sip:
The palate is a bit more robust than I expected. More dry with sawdust, powdered spices like white pepper, clove and nutmeg. I think I’m getting a hint of earl grey tea. Lots of oak, some vanilla, dried apples and cream. Again, very dry.

Swallow:
The finish veers back towards the complexity of the nose, but keeps the warmth of the pepper on the palate. It’s less dry and a tad sweeter, but there’s still sawdust and oak, toasted wood, old paper and books.

Apart from the fact that a lot of whiskies from the early seventies from Glengoyne were from sherry casks, and this one is not, it does everything what you expect such an old whisky to do. It forces you to pay some attention, to sit back and experience what’s happening. It warrants some time-taking, since the complexity is rather subtle, and it’ll pass you by if this is drank quickly.

The combination of the rather fierce oak, with the added dryness of the spices makes for a great and interesting whisky, although I would have expected a bit more fruit from this era of Glengoyne.

91/100

Glengoyne 1972-2015, Bourbon Barrel MoS 15037, 45.2%, Malts of Scotland Diamonds.