It feels like a million years ago when Bert Dexters got in touch about reviewing samples (it was about eight years…) but suddenly, at the end of 2024, there he was again. Liquid Art was celebrating their 10th anniversary with some special releases.

He was kind enough to send over some samples that I tried a while ago but haven’t published yet. The run up to Christmas was mental in regards to work and private stuff, and then I broke my knee and didn’t get around to anything much for a while.

But, when trying to catch up, samples you got sent take the first spots, so here we go. This Glentauchers of about 15 years old from a sherry cask came out last year. There’s only 96 bottles of it, but that suggests a split cask. There is no cask number so finding the rest might be a tad challenging, if that becomes necessary.

Glentauchers from sherry casks seems to work best, with it being a rather clunky spirit that needs some oomph from the cask to balance it out. Let’s see if that worked here!

Sniff:
Huge notes of barley with quite a lot of oak too. Very classical, with apple crumble and a bit of vanilla custard. Rather crisp with some menthol cigarette smoke. Apart from apple I get a whiff of banana too.

Sip:
The palate has a warm arrival but isn’t hot at all. Very fruity with notes of baked apple and banana, some cinnamon, vanilla and sawdust. Autumn leaves, maybe even a hint of tobacco leaves. Pretty dry with barley and oak.

Swallow:
The finish holds the middle of the nose and palate, with slight more focus on the barley than the palate, and more on the fruit than the nose. Again, apple and banana. Now also pear. Dry barley, some oak and a bit of black pepper.

Apart from it being a sherry cask, I would expect this to be an American oak sherry cask. There’s not so much spiciness that comes with European oak. It does provide some nice balance in combination with the sweeter fruity notes by adding some more crisp notes of apple. All in all a rather well balanced and lovely dram that’s well worth the € 139 it’s going for.

87/100

Available at several shops in Belgium