Glen Garioch 21yo 1990s
Vintage Official Bottling | 43% ABV
Score: 7/10
Very Good Indeed.
TL;DR
Like poetry for the palate - and the soul
Quiet Pleasures
In common with many Dramface writers and readers, I spend most of my time with Scotch meandering through the realm of cask strength releases.
Over time, the number of core range bottles at 40, 43 or even 46% ABV have lost share-of-shelf to become a smaller part of my collection. I’d say around 5% in total. Even then, a healthy percentage of those whiskies were bottled 20 or more years ago - including some interesting and tasty blends from over 50 years ago when the malt content was said to be higher than in the modern blends available to us today.
The rest of them are older bottlings of single malt, mostly acquired at auction, and generally by mooching around the listings in search of the less sought-after distilleries. After all, the price of an older bottle of official Springbank is well beyond anything I’m willing, or able, to pay.
Obviously, whenever the choice is made to invest hard-earned cash in a bottle that’s been sitting around for years or even decades, we’re taking a risk. We have no idea how it’s been stored at various points of its shelf life, or how many times it’s changed hands.
Has it been allowed to bathe in sunlight or been subjected to significant temperature changes? Has it been stored somewhere too warm for too long? And is it perhaps a fake? And then there’s always the question as to whether or not it will have fallen victim to that other OBE – Old Bottle Effect.
The answers to all of these questions will likely never be determined by the average whisky nerd. For even if a bottle has suffered from any or all of the above, most of us will be able to decide whether or not we like it, but not if it has suffered in one specific way or another at the hands of previous owners.
But while buying older, more obscure bottles may be riskier than picking up a Kilkerran from a few years ago that was impossible to find at retail, it’s also – in a way – more fun. Or, it’s at least a different kind of fun.
When I buy an older bottling at auction, it’s often because I’m already pretty sure I’m going to win a different bottle I’m bidding on, but that I’ll need another to make the shipping more “cost efficient”. After all, shipping a single bottle is definitely more expensive per bottle than shipping just one more. Right? (I know. But I bet there’s a few folks reading this that do exactly the same and willingly succumb to the illogic of the “buy more, save more” mantra).
So I always cruise the less obvious lots on offer to see if there are a couple of likely contenders to top up my auction haul – if successful. And over time I’ve enjoyed a few bottles of really good stuff. A 1988 Signatory 14yo Laphroaig comes to mind (46%) as being particularly luscious. And now sadly missed but fondly remembered. Some of course are less memorable. But them’s the breaks.
Anyway, the subject of my review today is one such bottle. And it’s a bottle that shows that, with the right bottle, there is a great deal of pleasure to be found at the 43% mark – even for a crusty old devotee of cask strength delights.
Review
Glen Garioch, 21yo, 1980s/1990s vintage official distillery bottling, 43% ABV
£160 (plus fees and shipping) via auction
Glen Garioch, having been founded in 1797, is one of the OG legal scotch-producing distilleries.
As with most of the older distilleries, it has changed hands a few times and survived a period of closure. In 1937, for example, it was bought by the Distillers Company Ltd. After being closed from 1968-70 - due to water shortages - it was acquired by Stanley P. Morrison Ltd, which became Morrison Bowmore Distillers, before that company was acquired by Suntory (now Beam Suntory) in 1994, which is where Glen Garioch resides today.
The bottle I’m enjoying and reviewing here, is labeled as being distilled and bottled by “Morrison’s Glen Garioch Distillery”. And this is where it gets challenging to date this bottle.
According to what I can surface by trawling the web, this wording was used on the label both before and after Morrison’s formally changed its name to Morrison Bowmore in 1987, right up until soon after the acquisition by Suntory. Which covers 1970-1994/95.
The earliest reference I’ve found to a 21yr old with this labeling is a bottling from 1986 (distilled in 1965) and the latest is 1995. So it’s all but impossible to pin down when this was bottled. But in the final analysis, it’s a point of interest, but not actually important.
It’s old. And I like it.
Score: 7/10
Very Good Indeed.
TL;DR
Like poetry for the palate - and the soul
Nose
Gentle. Floral and fruity. Lemon sherbet. Clementine, apple blossom, pine wood shavings. Lemon meringue pie. Parma violets. Old planks of wood heated by the sun. A waft of hay. Malt and a lick of honey.
Palate
Juicy fruit with white pepper. Pineapple upside down cake, charred peaches, Maltesers and dried oak. Nutmeg, cinnamon and a general impression of baking spices. Spearmint and a hint of antiseptic drifting in on the breeze. Balsa wood, black licorice and a gentle note of peat (varying amounts of peat were used in the production of Glen Garioch in the 1970s and 80s).
Reasonably long oaky finish that dries as it lingers. Notes of lightly charred or smoked fruit to the end. Dying embers and a setting sun.
The Dregs
If you’ve ever basked in the immense but quiet pleasure of the last hour of sunlight on a beautiful landscape on a still evening, then my guess is you’d appreciate this whisky.
I find this whisky to be quietly characterful. It’s in no way strident or aggressive. But it’s also not a wallflower. It warrants the attention I give it. When I spend time with it I find myself in a state of quiet contemplation; something much needed in these rather intemperate times.
Every time I’ve returned to this bottle, I’ve found myself enjoying a definite sense of calm. I relax and savor the poetry playing out on my palate and – for a few moments at least – feel at one with the world.
It drinks like a pleasantly meandering conversation with a good friend who knows you as well as you know yourself. A conversation where no one is trying to prove a point or be clever or funny. No competition. just passing the time. It’s a companionable whisky.
It may be very unlike the kinds of experiences we find at the other end of the ABV scale, but it’s no less rewarding. And as an advocate for the kind of old time OBs that can be found with a little bit of diligent auction trawling, it does the kind of job that will keep me looking for more.
Happy hunting.
Score: 7/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. NF
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