GlenDronach 1993 Cask #7434 26yrs

54.2% Oloroso Puncheon - Specially selected for The Whisky Shop

The latest GlenDronach single cask specially selected for The Whisky Shop. Cask bottlings of-late for these guys have been excellent, so I hope this one will be able to join its siblings the same ranks.

Appearance: Dark amber. Slow and ridiculously oily legs trail down the inside of the glass.

Nose: Bags of stewed fruit, dry white wine, moist Jamaican ginger cake, wafts of sherry, a handful of roasted nuts, a slab of un-melted blackcurrent jelly, and a final gentle gust of sour fruit. Unabatedly full-on with a myriad of rich aromas playing on the senses.

Palate: Beautiful. Wow. Absolutely delightful at first contact. A mellow sweetness creeps in with a light nuttiness and then changes gear and hits the accelerator. The sweet oily delivery now moves to rich caramelised peanuts, deep moist fruit cake and thick & sweet sherry. All the while the spirit fizzes in the mouth and allows everything to dance around and create mini-explosions of flavour. This is quite simply a delight.

Finish: Long, lingering and revolving. The finish goes from sweet to dry to sour to oily to fruity sherry and back again.

Water adds.. Gentle acetone/pear drops on the nose, more nuts on the palate with a little pepper. The finish is drier. I think adding water to this should be banned as it’s perfect without any dilution.

Conclusion Stunning. It is just refined and quite simply beautiful, and is an example of what happens when you get a perfect marriage of a truly epic Oloroso cask and GlenDronach’s spirit. I have to take my hat off to The Whisky Shop for choosing this cask and to Rachel Barrie for plucking it one out of the dunnage warehouse in its absolute prime. It’s a single cask selection that makes you tingle.

Available at thewhiskyshop.com for £239 (at the time of writing)