23 January 2019
GlenDronach 18yo ‘Allardice’
Our first moments with the GlenDronach 18yo were a bit of a struggle. When we bought one in 2014, we weren’t too impressed. Maybe it was overshadowed by the superb taste of the 15yo and 21yo, which were our favourites.
When the Revival fell away, we stuck with the Parliament (21yo) and never considered 18yo again, till this year. I decided to bring the family back together and the first thing I noticed, was the dark colour. We all know by now that GlenDronach’s closure between ’96 and ’01 resulted in the Revival being a lot older than 15 years old. This is now also the case with the Allardice, which is in fact 23 years old (bottling year 2018). So it’s older than my favourite, the Parliament, but don’t forget the fact that it underwent a slightly different treatment: Oloroso-only.
I cracked my bottle open and when I tasted it my heart skipped a beat: “wow, it’s really good!” This is totally a different dram than the one we had before, it’s much more mature. Let’s dive into the tasting notes, shall we:
Tasting notes
Nose
Full, warm and fruity. Dark notes of raisins, chocolate and orange peels, with lots of honey, grapes and a bit of old wood. It feels very mature and oldskool in this landscape of increasingly young bottles.
Palate
The palate is sweet and juicy and consist of a great combination of dried fruits and dark wood, it melts on your tongue and is very honey, and chocolate like.
Finish
Long and magnificent, lots of soaked raisins, sweet dried fruits, chocolate, oak, ginger, cinnamon, hazelnuts and walnuts with a hint of spicy wood and sherry infused wood. It dries into a hint of raisins.
You can imagine I stocked up after this, because this is simply a GlenDronach how it should be. It’s not better than the Parliament, but also not worse. The Parliament is slightly lighter, drier and contains more woody notes, while Allardice does a great job of being sweet and juicy.
What’s your favourite core-range GlenDronach?
You might also like:
