This wonderful 15-year-old distillery unique was hand-filled at the Glenfiddich distillery on December 9, 2013. It’s a blend of bourbon, sherry, and new oak that was married in a solera vat.
Appearance: Summer honey gold. A substantial tide mark releases many quick-forming medium/thick legs. After a few seconds, teardrops and beads also appear around the circumference of the glass.
Nose: A great ABV waft. Confectionary sweetness, including fruit salad sweets, honey cereal, orchard fruits (pear and apple predominantly) and some sweet spices too (cinnamon and nutmeg).
It’s a very familiar and friendly nose.
Palate: The ABV charges straight to the chest and warms nicely. A lovely thick honey and butter mouthfeel, very luxurious! Buttercream, vanilla and spice are presented first.
The second sip starts to reveal the more fruity sweet notes which are now evolving into blackberry and apple, with a touch of lemon. These fruit notes are now also more stewed and enveloped with pastry and clotted cream mellowness.
Some liquorice creeps into the mix and just bubbles away nice and subtly behind the other flavours.
The more I sip, the better the balance becomes between the spice and sweetness. Ending up like reduced raspberry sauce on vanilla ice cream dusted with fresh cracked black pepper.
Finish: Long sweet and spicy with some liquorice. The vanilla custard-style flavour, along with the black pepper last the longest.
Overall: Love it. A very friendly cask strength but without compromising on the punchy flavour set, great balance with lots going on and the higher ABV to keep things interesting.
Where do I get a bottle!?
