Clynelish 14yo
Official Bottling Re-review | 46% ABV
It’s hard not to think I’ve already missed out
FOMO. I’ve become fairly immune to it. With perhaps one or two exceptions.
With hard to find or quick to sell-out bottles often getting us twitching and reaching for our wallets, Fear Of Missing Out is a commonly used term in whisky. But the more time you spend buying whisky the more you realise these things come along like buses. There’s no need to be impatient. This is particularly the case in 2024; whisky is sitting on shelves longer than it has done for some years.
What I do suffer from is what I’m going to call HAMO, or Have Already Missed Out. Clynelish is a prime example of this.
Back when I was a more casual whisky drinker and thought all the whisky that existed was what I saw on the shelves of Asda or Tesco, there were people fully aware that Clynelish was a thing and it was available at good prices from independent bottlers and even from Diageo themselves. They were able to buy it, enjoy it and wax lyrical about it – particularly that wax part. I’ve since gone back and read Tyree’s Clynelish comparison review and noticed he used the same pun. Damn you Tyree! Mark Twain did say there was no such thing as an original idea, apparently.
I stumbled upon the wider world of whisky in 2019, thanks to a poster on a deals website recommending a Ralfy review of a bottle that was currently on discount. I wonder just how many people started their whisky obsession thanks to that man? That serendipitous moment sent me into a Youtube deep dive and a magnificent voyage of discovery that I am still on to this day. It’s a never-ending voyage that I doubt I will ever disembark from. My eyes were truly opened to a scene I never knew existed, but it soon became obvious that I had arrived later than ideal. We were already reaching the top of the curve in the malt boom. An early adopter I was not.
Prices had already risen significantly and whiskies with older age statements or from distilleries that were no longer operating were for the most part out of my financial reach. As recently as 2008 you could have bought a 1981 Port Ellen Feis Ile release for £99, which may well have been viewed as pricey at the time, but now you are looking at thousands of pounds a bottle.
That is perhaps an extreme example of where pricing has gone and in many ways we have never had it so good with the amount of choice there is out there. We can’t go back in time, so why give it any thought? True, but it’s still hard to shake the feeling that I missed out on a golden age of whisky discovery. I love the Whiskyfun website and what Serge has built there over the past twenty plus years is fantastic, but nothing brings these feelings to the surface like yet another old bottle of yesteryear’s whisky scoring ninety points plus, while bottles from today tend to sit a little lower down the scale for the most part.
Serge was one of those people who realised how good Clynelish was and was there at the right time to enjoy it, but let’s have a look at what we can buy from the distillery today. A look on a few of the larger retailer websites brings up the bottle I am reviewing today and the non-age statement Game of Thrones release, which I haven’t tried, but doesn’t appear to be too highly rated. Beyond that is a 12 year old Duncan Taylor release at 48.4% for £115 and the 2023 10 year old special release from Diageo, priced at £155. Neither of which register the slightest twitch of hand towards wallet. There was a distillers edition like we see from many other Diageo brands such as Talisker, Caol Ila and Glenkinchie, but it appears the Clynelish version has been long discontinued.
The only way I can properly experience Clynelish without donating a kidney is via the tales of drinkers who were buying and drinking it when it was available, because it’s gone. Relegated to the hype of whisky folklore, and as good as it may have been, nothing is overhyped quite like a fond memory from the past.
Despite this lack of ability to explore the distillery, Clynelish 14yo stands out. It’s readily available and I imagine that availability is in almost every market in the world. It is bottled at 46% too, which is unusually high for a Diageo core range product. I’m not sure if any chill filtering takes place and I believe there is a touch of colour added, but it is £50-55 everywhere. As I write this, one large retailer has it on sale for £42.49, and I paid exactly £40 for the one I am reviewing today a couple of months ago. For years this bottle has looked primed for a Diageo price hike on a similar scale to Lagavulin 16yo, or maybe even to Talisker 18yo levels of ridiculousness, but yet it hasn’t happened. Wally talked about the prospect of this more than two years ago when he reviewed this whisky as our debut piece on launch day. Thankfully, that has yet to take place.
Diageo are often seen as the big bad wolf of the scotch whisky scene, but they do deserve some credit. They operate a number of our favourite distilleries and even if they don’t always get the presentation or pricing right for their releases, they do sell liquid from many of them so we are able to enjoy it via the independent bottlers. While some may choose to boycott all Diageo products, I prefer to reward what they are doing right and leave on the shelf what they are doing not so well.
I am struggling to think of a better value core range whisky on the market today when we are only factoring age statement and bottling strength. Age is of course no guarantee of quality, but we all take it into account from a value perspective when buying blind. Why Diageo have kept the price as such, when a much less heralded malt such as Oban has a 14 year old at 43% for £80 is anyone's guess? Possibly distillery capacity and availability factors are at play.
Let’s see if this really is the best value whisky in 2024.
Review
Clynelish 14yo, Official bottling, bottle code L4085CM00600002121, 46% ABV
£40 paid, typically £50-55 and wide availability
Nose
Malty and yeasty, with honeyed apples, chocolate, sandalwood and a touch of cask char. I’m also getting waxy orange peel and WD-40 oil.
Palate
Marmalade and honey, with cream crackers, vanilla and gentle peppery spice. There is no denying the wax is there and it is showing as plain candle wax with charred oak alongside it. As it develops there is some light heathery smoke, which builds and becomes a little more oaky, with sour green apple peels, salt, liquorice and hazelnuts joining it in a creamy and medium length drying finish.
The Dregs
For the reasons mentioned above I haven’t tried much Clynelish at all. I would be surprised if this is a particularly stand-out example of what can come from the distillery, but it’s good. There’s been a bit of talk surrounding Dramface scoring since Aengus questioned whether scores have been drifting up amongst the team. From a personal perspective I often refer to the Dramface scoring system when I am contemplating what mark to give. An average mark is classed as a whisky with flashes of promise and at least one memorable note, but I think this Clynelish is a little better than that. This is a whisky that when priced fairly should be encouraged as a solid purchase. It is good and I am enjoying my time with it.
I don’t understand the cask market well enough to know why Clynelish is so hard to find and so expensive when you do. They have a fairly large capacity of almost five million litres and according to the Malt Whisky Yearbook are operating a seven day week at full capacity. I can only assume a lot finds its way into Johnnie Walker blends and the adoration of enthusiasts over the years may well have raised the price of casks Diageo will allow out of the doors.
I am getting some of the wax everybody talks about from Clynelish, but not as much as I get from recent bottles of Deanston 18, which is one of my favourite value malts and I would rate higher than this. I believe this whisky can vary in quality from batch to batch and for reference I’ve included the bottle code in the details above.
At the end of the day all we can do is enjoy what is available and excellent right now. As much as it still stings a little, there’s nothing we can do about what has gone before. There will be whiskies available now that will be talked about with rosy retrospection once they too become out of reach. This very whisky may well be one of those if it is ever taken away from us.
Is it the best value malt in the UK right now?
In my view there are better whiskies out there in a similar price bracket, so maybe not, but it is well worth its place on any whisky shelf while the price remains as it is.
Score: 6/10
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