The GlenDronach Parliament Aged 21 Years Single Malt Scotch Whisky, 70 cl

Product Information

No, this is not the whisky they serve at the Member’s Bar at Westminster. Both the House of Commons and the House of Lords have their own custom whisky, as does the Speaker of the Commons, but this whisky isn’t it. Nose (22/25): Very strong sherry. Dark chocolate. Cocoa beans. Dark rum. Nuts. Almonds. Walnuts. Spicy oaks. Let it air and it settles down nicely. Becomes more crisp. More sweeter. More brown sugar. Muscovado sugar. There's a hint of sourness. Cold cuts. Dark jam. Honey. Toast. Quite a typical Oloroso nose with some complexity thrown in thanks to the PX. The finish is long, creamy with a layered dried fruit sweetness, some licorice and a lingering pepperiness. The company has a long history of producing sherried malts, maturing its whiskies either in Oloroso sherry butts or in a combination of Oloroso and Pedro Ximénez (PX) casks. Regardless of whether the Service offers the functionality to contribute, you are solely responsible and liable for any content and information that you create, upload, post, publish, link to, duplicate, transmit, record, display or otherwise make available on the Service or to other Members, such as chat messages, text messages, videos, audio, audio recordings, music, pictures, photographs, text and any other information or materials, whether publicly posted or privately transmitted (“Contributions”).

In any case, I’m off to buy a 12yo Glendronach. That’s something I didn’t expect to say anytime soon. Thanks, Hamish and Dougie– this deep dive was needed.All of the above almost sounds to good to be true, but it is. Firstly because numbers don’t lie, and secondly because it was confirmed to Bert Rutkowski during a visit to the distillery in the summer of 2013. To conclude the original article, I wrote “ Let’s just hope that in a couple of years, when they can finally release whiskies with accurate age statements, they are able to produce the same top quality as they do now.” That hope doesn’t seem to have come to fruition. Sure, some of the single cask releases are still top notch, but also priced pretty much out of everybody’s range. As far as the more affordable releases go: the latest Glendronach Cask Strength Batch #9 was underwhelming. Those words by Buchanan turned out to be pretty prophetic. Indeed, GlenDronach has become so popular that despite their best intentions, the distillery has had a very difficult time keeping up with demand. Even so much so that they had to discontinue the GlenDronach 15-years-old Revival in 2015, less than 18 months after the original publication date of this article. Many a guffaw was heard in response, I’m sure. I don’t think said response helped Glendronach’s image amongst its supporters and single malt drinkers overall. Many of us are clued into the process of chill-filtration, and the thought of it being added to the whisky-making process now seemed baffling and confusing. What would happen to the quality of the liquid? We worried we were soon going to see something akin to a mass-market product, as common our supermarket shelves, from Glendronach.

The finish is long and lingering with sweet dried fruit notes, a bit of milk chocolate and a persistent pepperiness.As a result retail prices have risen, sometimes quite dramatically. That’s partly due to pricing policy by the distillery, but also because retail outlets realised they could ask higher prices for GlenDronach that was bottled in certain years — a regretful side-effect of this article. Current State of GlenDronach

The finish is long, with the lingering dried fruit sweetness characteristic of sherry matured whiskies, along with a slight balsamic note, with some bitterness and a bit of pepperiness.The palate features a pronounced sherry sweetness with a smooth velvet character and a pronounced palate weight. There are dried fruit flavors, especially raisin and fig, red fruit notes of cherry, strawberry and raspberry, along with some citrus zest, and almond. There are also some notes of milk chocolate and buttery croissant, think pain au chocolat, that emerge with a little time. Can I tell these apart? Sure. But can I tell if one has been processed differently from the other? Of course not. Like all the GlenDronach expressions the whisky has an oily, viscous character with a pronounced palate weight.