GlenDronach Original 12 Year

Very sweet, caramel was added

Fave 12 year, sweet full bodied

Paid $59 for a 1L bottle at Duty Free Americas. This is a bottle kill review. I will try to summarize what this bottle offered. Nose: Desert whisky, if there ever was one. Sherry, of course. Dark rum. Cognac. Chocolate and perfume. Coffee and honey. Palate: Decent balance between the honeyed sugary maltiness of the spirit and the plums and raisins from the sherry cask. PX influence is usually a bad influence for me, but it plays well here. Finish: Pretty long finish for a 12 year old. Slight lean towards bitter and dry with raisins, orange peels, and cloves. I think it’s just because the nose and palate saturates your sense of sweet so much, the other flavors fight back by default. I am keeping this stocked. This bottle has been opened for over a year, and it still tastes great. I would, however, not keep the dram open to air for more than an hour. I find with time, this loses its complexity and the arrival becomes sweet to the extreme, while the finish becomes even more bitter. Fortunately, it's not hard to drink this quickly. Pros: This is THE entry sherried whisky. I cannot think of another example that is so readily available, so easily recognizable, and so delicious. This recently beat out Macallan Ed. No 1 and Tamdhu Batch Strength #1 in a blind tasting I tried. Cons: For the price, I can’t think of any. Mark: 87/100 (range 85-89.5. N = 8)

Best of the year 12! Plenty of 12’s to choose from and if your wallet is right try them all. But this is the one that you’ll always come back to. Excellent daily drinker.