DrRHCMadden
Reviewed
November 24, 2022 (edited December 3, 2022)
Picked up a four pack of 50 ml Glenlivet samplers for AUD$30. Bargain. No expectations of grandeur but about time I knocked off a couple of common place bottom to 1st shelf bar offerings… now heading into number four I have been thoroughly underwhelmed by The Glenlivet. I’m hoping beyond hope that a NAS partially rum cask finished offering can somehow claw back some points…
N: Light and suggests a thin palate will follow. There is honey as the obvious note, a little banana (the dried chip variety), and pear/apple sweetness. Meh, unremarkable.
P: Didn’t see that coming. So so soft it feels like cool fresh water. Brown sugar, malty sweetness, some vanilla. Banana and coconut are barely present, but I do like the influence they have. I imagine if you really diluted some Malibu you might find a similar level of muted coconut. You could easily drink this by the glug, it is so soft and inoffensive as to be dangerous.
F: Medium. Brown sugar, a little spiced sweetness. Unremarkable again.
Right, maybe Glenlivet just isn’t for me. Maybe it is just a simple distillate that hits a middling ground of acceptability and tries to do no more? This Caribbean cask is as underwhelming as the 12 and offers barely a hint more novelty than the Founders Reserve. As for the other three Glenlivet offerings I have tried tonight there is nothing inherently wrong with this. I think the issue I have is that I want to drink good whisky. With a death in the family this week I am harshly reminded that life is too short for bad whisky.
[Pictured here with a 350-300 million year old Phonolite from Traprain Law in the East Lothians of Scotland. This rock is part of a volcanic plug, the choked up neck of an ancient volcano. The name phonolite is derived from the ancient greek word for ‘sounding stone’ because of the sound it makes if hit; and, gives rise to the English name ‘clinkstone’].
Distiller whisky taste #115
69.0
AUD
per
Bottle