The 15th anniversary of Whiskybase is a thing that should be celebrated. Not just from a commercial perspective, but also because I feel like Whiskybase has significantly changed the whisky landscape since its inception a decade and a half ago.

Not all of that change is good, I think. I love the platform, and happily manage my collection there. However, with prices from all over the world being entered into a system, it also means that prices are maintained on a global level. When one shop goes up, another will quickly follow.

This is not something that is Whiskybase’s fault or something. If it wasn’t the company from Rotterdam, it would have been someone else, so it was inevitable. It’s just that they’re the subject of this post.

Anyway, back to the celebration. This sixteen year old Glentauchers, bottled FOR Whiskybase and not BY them, comes from the warehouses of Gordon & MacPhail. A fairly straight forward approach with refill bourbon cask maturation, from a distillery that has a lot of different faces. Let’s find which face is shown this time!

Sniff:
Barley and straw at first, but there’s a custard-y richness too. It’s not too much focused on the vanilla, though. There’s candied lemon, a whiff of aniseed, twigs and some woody herbs like rosemary.

Sip:
The palate has a bit of sharpness, mostly wood and alcohol. Not necessarily peppery, but spices and herbs, and citrus fruits. Lemon pith and candied lemon segments, a bit of aniseed seeds. Later on there is some apple skins and fresh juice too.

Swallow:
The finish is a bit more dry but still keeps the richness. More straw and barley, oak and a bit of lemon pith. Quite a long finish that becomes slightly more sweet and slightly more lemon-curdy towards the end.

I love that they went with refill bourbon for this whisky. It shows a rather restrained profile, with a nice bit of fruitiness and some powerful wood and barley notes too. All in all it’s a very good whisky, with a nice bit of depth and lovely flavors. It’s not showing a lot of vanilla and not too much sweetness. Very good stuff!

89/100