Glengoyne 18yo
Official Bottle | 43% ABV
Score: 7/10
Very Good Indeed.
TL;DR
Great stuff, even at 43%
A fine bottle, but likely the last I’ll own
Ever since my first visit to the distillery, I’ve had a soft spot for Glengoyne. It’s a gorgeous place, the kind of distillery you picture when imagining where you’d want your water of life to come from. It sounds like marketing fluff, but it really is fed by a mountain stream tumbling down a picturesque little gorge into the distillery’s small reservoir, which is still used for cooling water today.
It sits at the foot of a local little mountain named Dumgoyne, a knobbly 1,400 foot peak and a familiar site visible from Glasgow, which forms the western edge of the Campsies a short drive from the city. The distillery is nestled into this Glen of Wild Geese with a few original early 19th century buildings still onsite. Once, after hiking up Dumgoyne and on to the highest summit in the Campsie Hills; Earl’s Seat, I’ve even walked over to the distillery and just wandered around a bit. There were other tourists around and so I didn’t stand out as a weirdo (anymore than usual, I suppose) but I loved soaking up the sights, smells, and buzz of the place.
As I live in the Glasgow area and often drive by on the local A81 which splits the Highland distillery from its Lowland warehouses across the road, I feel like I know the place. Having had some wonderful malt memories from there doesn’t hurt. Early in my journey I bought a 20cl bottle of the 21 year old from the distillery shop. I didn’t really “get it” like I would now, but there was a discernible level of quality there that was really distinct from the other things I was trying at the time.
While I wouldn’t say it was an “epiphany” whisky, it did broaden my palate’s horizon in terms of what it's like to drink something of a higher quality and maturity and how it differs from the experience you get with younger whiskies. I’ve explored a fair amount of Glengoyne over the past few years, having gone through two bottles of the 12 year old (enjoyed), the ten year old (eh…ok, but see Tyree’s take), the Legacy 1 (good, solid), a recent version of the Cask Strength (very good) and the occasional dram of the 21 (also very good).
That said, Glengoyne lately has started to leave a sour taste. Not because of the liquid itself, mind you, but rather because of some moves by its owners Ian MacLeod Distillers Ltd, who of course also own Tamdhu Distillery and the currently-being-rebuilt legendary Rosebank Distillery.
First, there was that phone thing last year. Did you catch it? As a Father’s Day promotion, Glengoyne offered a limited edition special aluminium (or aluminum, for my fellow ‘Mericans) bottle tube that you could drop your distracting-you-from-your-father smartphone into while you were having a dram with him. I continue to close my eyes and groan upon seeing it again a year later.
Second, are some of the prices for Glengoyne we’ve been forced to contend with. The again-bumped-up price of the Teapot Dram had us staring at a whopping £140 for this year’s batch. Before it came out I knew last year's price was £120, still very steep, but I told myself that I would love to – just once – own a bottle of the seminal Teapot Dram to take my time with and explore. I’ve had samples from some fabulously generous people in the community, had various versions in pubs, and it is indeed good stuff. Damn good stuff, in fact. I had saved my whisky pennies for that month, and then some, entirely for this bottle. And then it dropped online with that £140 price tag.
Needless to say, I decided that I would not, in fact, own a bottle. And, to follow this up, Glengoyne also released a 15 year old expression this year. For £90. Ninety. I haven’t tried it, to be fair, and maybe it’s indeed worth every penny of £90. But, I’m afraid I won’t know because I can bring myself to shell out 90 of my hard-earned British quids for it.
I hope you’ll forgive the rant here. I know that others feel the same way, though, including Earie in his review of the 21 year old late last year. I agree with everything he outlines there, and the overall sentiment, and I’m following in his footsteps here. His musings over owner Ian MacLeod’s recent moves, such as some of the pricing and attempts at ‘premiumisation’ of Glengoyne and Tamdhu may be chalked up to the Rosebank re-building, is compelling.
While there’s no doubt that Rosebank will probably be a fine product (as are Glengoyne and Tamdhu), there remains a question of how ‘premium’ it will be, or if it will be for us – the drinkers and enthusiasts – at all. There is apprehension that Ian MacLeod will want to cash in on their investment in Rosebank, which they are of course entirely entitled to do, by jacking up prices on the very customers that have made Glengoyne and Tamdhu such successes.
As Earie rightly quipped: “you can go full Diageo on some of the people some of the time, but you can’t go full Diageo on all the people all of the time” (can we get an amen for that line, by the way?). Some of these moves are already leaving a sting, both in my wallet but also my affection towards Glengoyne. We shall see.
But, for now, let’s leave all that aside and go to this nearly two-decade old malt sitting in my glass, as I sip it this evening with my patio door open, letting in the breeze carrying the first cool ripples of Scottish autumn, with the distillery that produced this a few miles away down the road…
Review
Glengoyne 18yo, Official bottling, 46% ABV
£120 retail (£70 paid at auction) widely available.
Score: 7/10
Very Good Indeed.
TL;DR
Great stuff, even at 43%
Nose
Chocolate right off the bat. Oak, very mellow stewed citrus fruits, cinnamon. A nice buttery-ness I get on most Glengoynes. A clearly sherried dram but not heavily so, and far from a sherry bomb. Creamy maltiness. Very pleasant, but still light at 43%.
Palate
Toffee, caramel, clear but tamed sherry cask spices (cinnamon again, nutmeg, slightly nutty). A nice mouthfeel and texture – I might even dare say slightly “chewy” – even at this lower ABV. Creaminess again on the palate following from the nose. Chocolate again, but on the palate it turns to more slightly bitter dark chocolate – in a good way.
Glengoyne of course matures most of its stock in ex-sherry casks. Neither the bottle, box, nor Glengoyne website offers an explicit cask make-up, only to say that there’s a “generous proportion of first-fill sherry casks.” But given the very well-crafted and wonderful balance of flavours here, it’s probably safe to say that there’s some refill casks in here, too. A nice medium-to-long finish, and drying.
The Dregs
I was lucky to pick this up at auction earlier this year at the very agreeable price of £70. Current retail for this is £120. That’s…a lot for this, I must say. If I can pick up another bottle at auction for £70, maybe £80 at a hard push, I might go for it. But that’s still a lot of money. I’m afraid that at current prices, I definitely wouldn’t replace this. It frustrates me to say that, but that’s the way it is. That £120 could buy me a lot more whisky and just as good or better quality than this. What’s not so bad is that I – we – are so spoiled for choice these days even as something moves away from us, the enthusiasts, something else will take its place.
This is very nice stuff, no doubt about it. You should try it if you get the chance. I’m not saying buy, but try. But this bottle of Glengoyne 18 will be, for me, transient and fleeting: once it’s gone it’s gone, and I’ll move on to something else that’s more affordable. I’m enjoying my time with it, and I’ll nurse it slowly. And when I drive past the distillery again I’ll think of this and the other Glengoynes I’ve enjoyed. But next time, I’ll likely drive right on past, without stopping, to somewhere else down the road.
Score: 7/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. DD
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