The First Dram Of The Year!


Whisky: GlenDronach 1990, 23 Year Old, PX Cask, Cask #1240

Distillery/Brand:
GlenDronach

Bottling:

GlenDronach 1990 23 Year Old Cask 1240

Region:
Speyside

ABV:
50.8%

Colour:

Copper

Review:
I seem to be on a bit of a GlenDronach kick lately, having recently enjoyed Abbey Whisky's first ever bottling of GlenDronach, a 20 year old cask strength from an Oloroso Sherry barrel and then a few whisky friends of mine have been introducing me to more and more GlenDronachs.

I've been loving it to be honest, a great sherried whisky, at an affordable price, what's not to like!

A very good friend of mine recently introduced me to a very special GlenDronach, a UK exclusive, 23 year old, aged in Pedro Ximenez casks and bottled at cask strength.

When he told me he'd picked up a PX cask strength GlenDronach, well I won't lie, I had a little accident in my pants.  I was that excited!

Pedro Ximenez, my favorite style of sherry, paired with a great Speyside distillery, yeah I knew I was in for a treat.

My friend wound up bringing this whisky over to our house on Boxing Day and then was kind enough to give me the bottle, which meant that my treat was becoming a super treat!

This GlenDronach pours out thickly, almost letting you know in advance that it's going to be beautiful and syrupy.  Beautiful and a dark dark burnished golden color that just makes you start salivating.

The nose immediately lets you know how sweet this whisky is going to be, with the Pedro Ximenez cask all over the nose, rich luscious dark fruits, sultanas, figs, chocolate, toffee, honey, toasted oak, soft spices, cinnamon, thick, sweet and honestly just a heavy nose.

This for the record is a nose that NEEDS to breathe.  If you give it a nose right after pouring it's just thick with the PX cask.  I wound up doing this review after the whisky had been sitting for roughly an hour to 90 minutes in it's glencairn.

It's lovely and it makes you think of a deep freeze in the middle of a snowy winter in the heart of Speyside, with the snow piling up 4 feet deep, the temperature plummeting and you're sitting in your house with a roaring fire and a great whisky in your hand, keeping yourself toasty warm.

Time for a drink though!

Oh god that is bloody delicious!

Spices, dark fruits and a huge explosion of chocolate espresso.  Let's go deeper shall we?

Sultanas, raisins, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, all spice, hint of coriander, rich PX cask influences, then just a massive explosion of the chocolate espresso.

Very sweet, but very delicious, however that sweetness might be too much for quite a few folks that I know.

The finish is long, feeling like it last forever on the palate with the chocolate espresso and some hints of the dark fruit.

This is an awesome whisky, rich and complex, big, quite big, with the PX cask just roaring around the whisky in a delicious way that makes me grin.  I couldn't have too many drams of these in a night, but man, having one or two over the course of an evening after a long crappy day at work?

Yeah that would go down a treat.  This is a single cask bottling, so you're looking at 592 bottles in this batch, and it is running at roughly $200 to $250 AUS, but if you want one you'll need to move quick as most retailers in the UK are completely sold out.  If you like your whiskies sweet, big and complex then you'll love this bad boy!

Nose:       24/25
Taste:       24/25
Finish:      22/25
Balance:    23/25

Overall:     93/100