A Glenlivet single cask that takes no prisoners
Welcome to my (official) 300th regular tasting note blog. By no means is this the 300th whisky we taste on Long Pour Amour, because we do like to taste more than one whisky per blog, but we keep count of our regular blogs. This means three episodes during the week (Monday, Wednesday and Friday) and one longread – or as we say: a Long Pour – on Saturday. Well, all things considered, you could say: who cares? As long as we have a reason to pull something special out of the drawer, we soldier on! For today, I came across an official single cask Glenlivet that was already bottled in 2017 and could be considered ancient. On the other hand, it is far from sold out, and considering we moved on 8 more years, current day prices are not even half bad for a single cask of one of the most famous distilleries in the world!
Today’s sample carries an age statement and a name: Baderonach. I could not really discover what the name refers to, other than a hill named like that. We will just focus on the whisky inside the bottle then, won’t we?
The Glenlivet Baderonach 16 years old, bottled at 58,4 % abv
First things first: Cask #9941 was filled after 16 years in February 2017 and yielded 624 bottles. Quite a number, so maybe it was a sherry cask? This particular Glenlivet was a Dutch exclusive.
Upon Sipping: Rich in wood spices and vanilla, but not the easiest to nose due to the high alcohol volume. Certainly an enticing nose, with maturity dripping from it. Some berries lurk in the background, but might come out with some water. First a sip then. Surprisingly fruity sweet at the start, before the vanilla and the wood spices take over. An incredibly hot but satisfying finish, with hints of menthol and liquorice wood.
With water this Glenlivet single cask shows signs of deeper layers, with herbal notes hidden under damp moss. This could well be a divine whisky to take in your flask while walking up Baderonach Hill. Might that have been the inspiration for the name? The taste improves a lot with a good dash of water, giving loads of apricot on the tongue, but still enough spices to firmly keep it out of the fruity corner. There is a lot of vanilla too, and the tongue continues to tingle from hotness.
Word to the Wise: Perhaps a tad too feisty to go to great heights, but an excellent example of raw Glenlivet spirit. Modern whisky, and a far cry from the more commercial products The Glenlivet brings to the thirsty masses.
Score: 85 points.