Ballantine's Glentauchers 17 Year

I feel like my role on Distiller is to provide an inferior quality review to the ones already given by the great @cascode. Yet again I am indebted to @cascode for the generously shared dram. This dram, as with many Cascode and I taste is probably unlikely to be tasted by the masses on Distiller. This here is a special release from Australia’s ‘The Whisky Club’ the worst subscription whisky platform out there. @Cascodes review has all the details so I wont bother with repeating them here. N: Light and bright. Lots of very crisp orchard fruit; apples, nectarines, and dried apricots. The orchard is backed by a light citrus zest and a slightly spiced cereal malt. I like this, very enjoyable and doesn’t step into an overly sweet territory. P: Sweet and warm up front. Plenty of building bakery spice this palate is driven by a fairly hefty barely sugar and slightly hot candied ginger. The official tasting notes have lots of fluffy descriptors that I don’t find but there is a slightly pancake feel to the malt and a slight floral note that I can’t put my finger on. Annoyingly I find the spice profile a little muting of everything else that might be here. F: Medium. There is an unexpected development of dark malt loaf (Soreen specifically if you have ever had it), a touch of dark chocolate and some silky texture. This is interesting, I think the nose on here is lovely, and the finish is an unexpected turn that is juxtaposed as winter against spring. The palate I’m meh about, sadly I found the spice to dominant. Individual elements, separated, and considered; make this above average. But on aggregate I think it lacks balance and cohesion. Thanks again @cascode, appreciate the shared whisky love. Distiller whisky taste #239 [Pictured here with a corundum (sapphire)-garnet-biotite schist from Zazafotsy Quarry, Ihosy District, Madagascar. This rock formed as a product of metamorphism of muddy silts 494 million years ago when the PanAfrican Orogeny started to assemble the supercontinent Gondwana. This rock is the product of a pretty intense and violent geological history including shear zones, hot fluids, temperatures of up to 700 degrees Celsius and pressures of around 5 kb. Turns out, if you smash the heck out of muds you can make some pretty remarkable rocks.]

Nose: Sweet fresh-mown hay, sugar-frosted corn flakes, peach and apricot nectar, green apple skins. It’s a very fruity nose enlivened by a cereal aroma foundation. Palate: Sweet arrival all on barley-sugar and stone fruits. Some mellow spices in the development with a little zesty and warming cinnamon. The texture is full and rounded. Finish: Medium/long. Some malty, ale-like notes appear towards the end with a slight sourness. This sour quality throws the balance off a little. Glentauchers is owned by Pernod Ricard and along with whiskies from Miltonduff and Glenburgie it is one of the central malts used for the Ballantine’s range of blended scotch. Like its stablemates, Glentauchers is a sweet, grassy, estery malt and the blended output from the three distilleries is one of the reasons behind the high degree of consistency in the Ballantines scotches. You don’t get it so much in Ballantine’s Finest, but from Ballantine’s 12 year old and up you definitely sense the presence of these classic sweet Speyside distillates. In 2017 the company released a set of three 15 year old single malts, one from each of the distilleries. Since then they have released similar sets for whisky clubs, liquor shops etc worldwide. The Whisky Club (Australia) bought such a parcel of malts in mid 2022 and released them over the next 12 months. I only bothered to buy this one, knowing from past experience with the distilleries that, well, if you’ve tasted one then you’ve tasted them all (unless as an IB expression with a fancy finish). This is a pleasant single malt, very sweet and inviting on both nose and palate with just enough depth to make it interesting. It is marred slightly in the finish which is OK on the first sip but develops a sour lactic quality with each subsequent taste, so by the end of a dram you’re sort of glad it’s finished. Still, I've almost polished off the bottle and I enjoyed it. “Good” : 83/100 (3.5 stars)