Glendronach 12 Year Old 2009 SMWS Single 1st Fill Bourbon Cask 96.37 Un Patisserie A Paris Highland Single Malt Scotch Whisky (2021) 70cl

1 of 224 bottles produced from a single ex bourbon barrel which is rare for a Glendronach Whisky. Particularly a single cask.

The Scotch Malt Whisky Society was founded in Edinburgh in 1983 by Phillip 'Pip' Hills who, while travelling around Scotland in the 1970s, fell in love with whiskies drawn straight from the cask. After he expanded his syndicate the Society was purchased by Glenmorangie PLC in 2004. In 2015, the Society was sold back to private investors. In June 2021, the private owners floated the holding company The Artisanal Spirits Company plc on the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange.

It has a unique code system where the first number refers to the distillery and the second refers to the cask from which the bottle comes. SMWS also offers the largest range of distilleries of any independent bottler. These curiously named drams really do have something for every whisky lover!

The SMWS are one of the Britain's most revered independent bottlers with a worldwide network of partner bars with one mission of getting as much whisky at natural cask strength without water to different nations including USA, Canada, Switzerland, UK, Austria, Germany and many others.

These older labels from the first runs are mostly with distillation methods that include direct heat which was replaced with steam for many distilleries for environmental reasons changing the taste of whisky forever. It'll get real interesting when nuclear fusion is used to distil whisky. We might glow green for a few weeks after we drink the stuff. Who knows.... but all we know is that the old stuff has a musky taste that is VERY welcomed by people nowadays trying to time travel through whisky's past.

TASTING NOTES

The initial nose communicated lychee, grapefruit and cherry, then we got caramel, maple Danish and gingerbread, polished wood and window putty. The palate started out with butterscotch and Highland toffee, honey and custard tarts, then we reached more a complex landscape of lemon and ginger, sanded wood, leather and tobacco. The reduced nose opened the door to a Parisian pâtisserie – fruit flans, puff pastry cakes, banana loaf and café noir biscuits. In reduction, the palate opened with juicy citrus, cherry and cranberry, before running through to a glorious finish of sugar-coated fennel seeds, ginger and clove, coffee beans and pencil ends.

About Glendronach