Today indie Glen Garioch, young and old


August 10, 2021

	Summer Duets Today indie Glen Garioch, young and old
	I always enjoy doing these short 'young and old' sessions, as long as both are good. As for Glen Garioch, it's good fun to try to navigate between the distillery's various styles, which could have gone from the peatiest makes (early-to-mid 1970s) to some much fruitier, easier profiles (1990s…) via those wackier soapy batches that were also to be met at Bowmore at that time. Right, the 1980s…

Glen Garioch 12 yo 2008/2021 (59.4%, Cask 88, Unfiltered Series, refill bourbon barrel, cask #640, 230 bottles)

Colour: straw. Nose: a firmer style again after quite a few very fruity years, with more oils and waxes, something clearly Clynelishy, an obvious minerality around limestone and damp chalk, a few drops of fruity beer, then rather various plums at the fruit section. Preserved greengages, a hit when I was a kid. Some porridge and some dough in the background, this is clearly malty. With water: it would just get a little gentler, but the profile, just as the song, would remain the same (with a nod to LedZep fans). Fresh dough at a baker's, yeast, plums, chalk, sunflower oil… Mouth (neat): tart, pungent and extremely lemony, you'd almost fear it would attack your gums. Impressive tartness, really, but then again, almost 60% vol. So… With water: very impressive, very tart, with more granny smith and lemons, green tea, chalk… It is both oily and waxy and very tart and almost acidic, which in truth works very well. Finish: very long, with more 'green' fruits, starfruits, goji, physalis, jujubes… A lot of vitamin C in this wee Glen Garioch! Comments: a fighter.
SGP:571 - 88 points.

And the older brother… (or twenty years earlier…)

Glen Garioch 31 yo 1988/2019 (49.1%, Hunter Laing, Platinum Old & Rare, 223 bottles)

Let's see whether violets and lavender are still lurking in the shadow or if they were already gone, gone, gone. Colour: full gold. Nose: no soapy tones whatsoever, we're safe this far. We're rather wandering throughout some tropical forest, with eucalyptus smells, mushrooms (magic ones, if possible), cedar wood, thuja, green tea, patchouli, a little vetiver, whiffs of fresh-roasted pistachios, then pine needles, probably a little humus, old stump, menthol… This is all very lovely, refined and most elegant, but in my experience, these piney noses could lead to palates that have gone bone-dry and too resinous. Let's see… Mouth: something like that indeed, but we're extremely far from any ueber-resinousness. Strong tea, menthol tobacco, thyme tea, liquorice wood, grapefruit, nori, a wee feeling of turpentine, concentrated lemon juice, crunching pine needles (when we were kids), macha… Indeed it is all pretty green. Finish: rather long, very good, without any excessive dryness, I would say it would even tend to become lighter and fruitier. Citrus. Comments: a little frightening at times, but it overcame all obstacles. Pretty unusual and rather fascinating old Glen Garioch.
SGP:571 - 88 points.

Check the index of all Glen Garioch we've tasted so far