Tasting 3 Glenallachies

I have tried too little Glenallachies so far, and I hope these three ones, though surely very far from the whisky the distillery is bottling today (do they produce any standard bottlings at all??) Time to explore!



Glenallachie 40yo 1971-2011 47.7% Creative Whisky Company cask#739

Brown & grey-ish color, concentrated tea is what comes to mind, I have seen this color in whisky from fino casks earlier. It smells very bitter, paint thinner, grassy, orange seeds, sauna steam, dusty, gravel dust. Remember this one was distilled just 4 years after the distillery opened. It tastes burnt, a lot of phenol and huge oakiness, needs water I think. And yes, of course it needs a lot of breathing. After a while it still opens up on some tobacco and ginger, much better, but I still thinks it needs a small drop of water to really blossom. With about a teaspoon of water it turns lighter and more perfumy, I do not recommend adding water unless you want a more subtle and easily drinkable malt. Its a good one, but all the extremes have gone. Nutty, ginger, lime, tonic water and rubber.

One could rave about its "complexity" I guess: 5


Glenallachie 38yo 1973-2011 50.4% The Whisky Agency

From an ex-bourbon cask, bright golden, very light for a 38yo. Smells very grassy, floral, butter, thyme, ginger, green pesto, cedar wood. The taste is sweet, syrupy, oily, honey, nectarine, vanilla, minty, a lot of nice characters, and if this was a young, say 12yo bourbon-matured speysider, I'd say it's a very good example of a light and perfumy Speysider. But at 38yo there should be so much more going on in this dram.

A small disappointment: 4.5


Glenallachie 16yo 1995-2011 53% Malts of Scotland cask#1257

A more recent distillation, and there was a 16yo from the distillery distilled in 1989. The color is white wine, from a bourbon hogshead. It smells banana, vanilla, black peppers, apricot jam, ginger, extremely bitter bittersweet. The taste is sweet, heavy vanilla and banana, but the aftertaste is gone within a second, a light and sweet whisky, surely a nice drink, but very boring.

Light and sweet stuff: 4



Next tasting: Old Pulteney Distillery