GlenGlassaugh was reopened in 2008, under guidance of Billy Walker, who took over BenRiach and GlenDronach before then. He’s now active at GlenAllachie since selling the trio of distilleries to Brown-Forman.
EDIT: GlenGlassaugh was restarted under guidance of Stuart Nicholson. Billy Walker took over in 2013.
To celebrate the reopening of the distillery in 2008, after being closed for over 20 years, the ‘Rare Cask Releases’ were done. It’s a set of single casks to showcase the diversity of the distillery’s output.
When this Port cask came out last year, it was one of the first ones I saw on Dutch shelves that was affordable, and even then we were talking at an eleven year old whisky at over € 100.
I believe it’s more affordable now, but I don’t know why it started popping up at lower prices.
My bottle was bottle-shared, used in a tasting and yesterday I finished the last bit of my share. Let’s see where this one ends up on the spectrum of deliciousness!
Sniff:
Jammy, with lots of fruit. Unmistakable a port cask. Quite some fruity and woody sweetness, with a nice scent of oak. Some stewed cherries and strawberries.
Sip:
Quite gentle for the ABV, with lots of old oak, and port. Slightly funky with wet dirt, dunnage warehouse floors. Stewed red fruits.
Swallow:
The finish is a bit more dry with a hint of white pepper. The jammy fruit lingers longest.
Quite sweet, with a lot of cask influence. Absolutely not bad though. It’s good that it’s typical for a port cask, but the drawback is that it’s hard to determine how the spirit has matured. Also, I would need more than one whisky to get a bit of a bearing of that.
Anyway, a solid whisky that is very enjoyable. Not overly complex or layered, though.
86/100
Malt Fascination 