First off, a HUGE thank you to Erik McRitchie for letting us use his picture !
He has, with his friends and colleagues, been a huge influence on many whisky photographers and instagramers !
You can see his work at erikmcritchiephoto.com or on Instagram at From Barrel To Bottle !
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Glenfiddich.
One of the giants of the whisky industry and single malt brands. Knocking out over 12m litres a year and soon to be upping it to about 20m. Excellent. More to go round.
Doing it with absolute bullet proof consistency.
No question.
I mean, when did you ever have a shit bottle?
I’ve never had one.
Well that’s the small batch craft distillery bastard hipsters triggered and gone then. Good. Piss off, put it back on the shelf and buy something with a fucking stupid name instead and while you’re there the cask strength Springbank purest can fuck off as well.
I couldn’t give a shit.
I think that most whisky drinkers will agree that Glenfiddich is, or was their gateway single malt scotch. It was always the one you saw in the pub or more than likely someone had a bottle in the house.
The 12, 15 and 18 year old bottles were all I’ve seen and I’d heard of older bottles.
Then from nowhere the Snow Pheonix came out. Then they started doing other NAS bottles. The experimental series. IPA, XX project, Fire and Cane, Bourbon casks etc and all of a sudden Glenfiddich were doing interesting things and actually doing more than standard age statements ! Experi-mentalist, outside the box thinking, just having fun and moving things forward and let’s be honest. Expanding their customer base.
Nice one team Glenfiddich.
Nothing but love.
Personally I’d like to get hold of the 14yo bourbon cask, a Fire and Cane and another bottle of IPA.
Here’s the sad bit though, no one really talks about the 12, 15 and 18yo except for Glenfiddich and their happy bunch of brand pushers and ambassadors.
Yes they won awards all over the place but is it now the case that they have been around so much that they are common or garden whisky and were a bit forgotten?
In my eyes it is forgotten about, and it seems they have been around for so long that Moses had bottle waiting for him when he came down the mountain.
You’ll have some of the 12yo and 15yo every so often in the pub but rarely buy a bottle because there is something new and shiny to buy instead.
But I think that no one really looks at it as a quality age statement single malt anymore.
LOOK AT THE GOOD QUALITY, YET REASONABLY PRICED SINGLE MALT WHISKY. NOW!
NOW!
I got this 15 year old for my birthday and have been enjoying it bit by bit.
Colour.
You can see it better than myself.
Colour blindness hasn’t cleared up as of yet.
Smell.
Nope. Nose is still crap.
Taste.
Sherry-small-calibre-mortar as opposed to sherry-bomb.
All those nice characteristics but just done with a certain nicety. As opposed to kicking your gums in and dispensing blunt force trauma to mouth region.
Marzipan and cake and sherry. Subtlety done.
Just a little bit of heat from the alcohol but that dissipates easily.
You can feel it coat your mouth and teeth ! A certain viscosity to it.
Lasts for a little while nice and easy with no unpleasantness.
15yo single malt good quality scotch for less than £40 and often under £35 and the 12yo for around £25 on a regular basis.
What is there to moan about?
Do not use the following words if you want to moan about it.
Craft or Artisan
Small batch
40% abv
Its Grant’s.
If you’re desperate to moan feel free.
But it’s Grant’s, it is 40% abv and it’s not small batch. Its comes from a huge, fuck off juggernaut of a distillery that is only going to get bigger and crush all in its path. It won’t be cask strength because unless you get it from the distillery or from a secret club getting hold of a Glenfiddich cask is like getting hold of a homemade Tom Hardy sex tape. It just doesn’t happen.
My advisement is this. Put down the bottle of overly vanilla and sweet hipster shit with a twattish name that works really well in a mixer which doesn’t need to have an age or geographic statement as its pointless nowadays (yes, you know which bunch of cockwobble marketing managers I’m looking at. You absolute bunch of Fuck witts!) and pick up a Glenfiddich 12yo or 15yo.
Revisit it, sip it and look at it as a decent single malt and drop off any prejudice at the door.
Lets face it. It’s probably where it all began for most of us.