The one malt without peat influences: Glengoyne

Glengoyne famously pride themselves as being the one distillery that never uses peat in their core production. All malt is dried with hot air, and the result is a whisky that we can experience without any dominant interference of smoke, medicinal notes or whatever you associate with peated malt. With this beautiful clean spirit, distilled in one wash still and two spirit stills, you can create good templates for wood impact. I visited the distillery in 2006 and this was around the time they released a Scottish oak matured 17 years old. I still regret not getting a bottle, even though I wonder how I would like it now. But we comforted ourselves with one of the few fantastically sherried expressions they had in those days. Especially the 21 year old comes to mind. On the table today we have two older expressions for you to enjoy, and to conclude this unpeated whisky week on this blog.

Glengoyne 25 years old, bottled at 48 % abv

Makeup: Matured in sherry casks and released in 2019.

General impressions: This is what you could call a real sherry monster. Dark colour, fat legs in the glass and a nose to die for. Strong on chocolate, deep red cherries and dry wood branches, broken off a tree in a autumnal forest. Light hints of tobacco boxes and old bookshelves in the second hand bookstore. The chocolate taste takes a front seat upon the first sip I take. The taste then develops towards the cigar that came out of the aforementioned box. The wood influence is strong on this Glengoyne. It is all cask here, the spirit serves as a carrier of everything the wood had to pass on to us whisky drinkers. The finish packs a lot of punch, making me conclude the alcohol strength is just superbly chosen for this expression

Still, with some drops of water, a nice leather note comes out, mixed with clove. The taste got a tad bitterish and the finish shows signs of light sulphur, so best to avoid water altogether.

Conclusion: A very typical proprietary release, playing it safe, going straight through the middle on the road to your heart. It is excellent in its simplicity. I would have liked something even more exciting, but high quality is always satisfactory.

Score: 90 points

Glengoyne 1973, 36 years old, bottled at 52,9 % abv by Murray McDavid

Makeup: Matured in a hogshead and bottled in 2009 in the Aficionado series by Murray McDavid. The whisky was distilled on 5 February 1973.

General impressions: Wow, yeah! A classical fruit bomb on the nose. All kinds of baby fruit food that you could buy in a glass jar long ago (or maybe still, the diaper years a long behind me). A very stark contrast with the sherried Glengoyne we tasted before this one. Only on the taste we have to dig a little deeper to uncover the tropical notes, because they are certainly mixed with a bitter wood tone that is inevitable after 36 years of contact with the cask. We try to push this out of the frame with a few drops of water. And oh my, I do not know how the taste will evolve with this water added, but the nose just got all the more fruity because of it.

I feel the vitamine C go up in my body by just nosing it. Amazingly beautiful. The taste does indeed improve a little too. Gone are the overly wooded influences, and they make place for a more breaded influence that I like.

Conclusion: Gorgeous stuff, the kind “they do not make anymore”. Well, actually, maybe it is made every day, we just have to wait 36 years for it to discover. This Glengoyne can proudly take a place in a lineup with classic fruit monsters like Tomatin, Benriach and Fettercairn at high age. That no peat was hurt in the making of this whisky is just a sidenote.

Score: 91 points.

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