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Glen Scotia Campbeltown Festival 2024

Unpeated 9yo Fino Finish | 56.2% ABV

Older does not equal better

It’s an old adage these days. But we still look at the age statement as a marker of not only value for money, but superiority in the quality of the whisky. I’m guilty of it too and it’s a hard habit to kick, but the evidence is there that should make us realise it does not always matter.

I am part of a blind tasting group. Twenty eight of us each put £35 in every month and one person is given the money to buy the whisky, package it up and send it to the rest of the group. One person from the group – our Mike from the Honest To A Malt podcast - approached Ian McAlister , Glen Scotia’s distillery manager, who very generously provided all the whisky for that tasting free of charge, with the money going to charity.

These whiskies were straight from the cask, not available to buy, and at ages ranging from 7 to 32 years old. Quite incredible when you consider the cost of old Glen Scotia now, with the 25 year old retailing at around the £500 mark. At the time of tasting, none of us knew what the whiskies were of course.

What struck me most from the tasting once they were revealed, is that the two oldest whiskies were my least favourite of the evening. That’s the beauty of the blind tasting. Had I known I was drinking 24 and 32 year old Glen Scotia, would I have been as critical and scored them a 1 out of 5 and 2 out of 5 respectively? I would have been excited by the prospect of trying such well aged Glen Scotia straight from the cask, and I might have tried to find reasons to like them more.

A 2013 vintage cask number 9 first-fill ex-bourbon was the stand out for me by some margin. I wish I could buy a bottle!

Although there is a fair argument that younger whiskies perform particular well in blind tastings, due to their bolder profile than the often more delicate older ones, when you consider how Glen Scotia present their whiskies at 18 years and upwards, all of which have some sort of finish, it makes more sense why I may have scored the two older casks so low.

They certainly were not bad whiskies, and other members of the group liked them more than I did, but to feel the need to lift the quality of whiskies at that age with more active casks suggests to me that the quality of whisky maturing from the previous ownership isn’t good enough to simply vat it together and bottle. This is backed up by Ian McAlister during the SMWS Whisky Talk podcast from late 2022, where he talks about previous ownership making sub standard liquid and putting it into poor quality wood being the reasoning for finishing these older releases. Interestingly, the 2013 cask number 9 I loved and the 1991 cask number 532 that I didn’t enjoy as much, were also featured in the SMWS tasting.

Ian talks about how it took him and his team a number of years of experimentation to get Glen Scotia’s spirit exactly where they wanted it, with 2013 being the year cited where they had finally settled on the perfect formula, just before Loch Lomond Group took over the distillery.

Loch Lomond Group have been doing a great job of building the reputation of both Glen Scotia and Loch Lomond over the past handful of years, with only one final piece of the puzzle that we as enthusiasts would love to see happen – ditch the caramel colourant.

I believe Glen Scotia are looking to do that with their 46%+ whiskies, but I have heard that story for some time, and it doesn’t appear to have happened just yet. Loch Lomond appears to be much further away from doing that, but the fear of losing their core customers who would be put off by a much lighter visual appearance is a real issue.

I believe Glen Scotia are also missing a trick with their core range. The non-age statement Double Cask is a good, young, 5-6 year old whisky and available at a fair price. There is a 10 year old, but the decision to bottle it at 40% is a little baffling, especially at the £45 price point. I think they need to elevate that release to 46% and bridge that price gap to the much celebrated circa £70 a bottle 15 year old and Victoriana.

Retain Campbeltown Harbour as your 40% product at the base of the range, and elevate everything else to 46%, non-chill filtered, natural colour and I think the reputation will be enhanced further. It works for Springbank. It will work for Glen Scotia.


Review 1/2 - Ramsay

Glen Scotia 9yo, Campbeltown Malts Festival 2024 release, Fino cask finish, unpeated, 56.2% ABV
£65 and wide availability

The Campbeltown Festival bottles from Glen Scotia, although a lot younger than their other finished whiskies, also have a finish, which changes from year to year. As an annual special release, it needs a point of difference to get people talking and encourage repeat purchases, and the finish therefore makes greater sense than it does for a core range product.

The last one I picked up was the 2021 unpeated Bordeaux red wine finish, which was a tasty whisky considering I find wine finishes, particularly with unpeated whiskies, very hit and miss. The last two were a peated PX and a white Port finish, which I didn’t pick up as they are released at a time of year where I am looking for something lighter, and I suspect I had my eyes on other bottles at the time.

Fino gives a much lighter sherry influence than you would generally get from an Oloroso or PX, so I was intrigued when I saw this one was on the horizon, and made sure I kept some budget aside for a bottle. At £65 it isn’t cheap, but for a cask strength nine year old it’s absolutely fine. Free delivery from the distillery web shop sweetened the deal too.

It was matured for most of its life in first-fill ex-bourbon, before a minimum six month finish in Fino sherry casks.

Nose

Lots of vanilla and caramel, with mineralic dry stone/pebble beach elements and coastal sea air that I usually get with ex-bourbon cask Glen Scotia’s. Fresh, sweet apple, but also acidic apple cider vinegar, with grilled pineapple and peach notes, floral linens and freshly sawn wood, with the Fino cask adding a background of red berries.

Palate

Very fruity. Sweet apples, sour lemons and red berries are predominant, with vanilla, caramel, sea salt, light, drying oak and a suggestion of struck match sulphur. It’s quite peppery even with some reduction, but without ever veering towards hot. The finish is dry and creamy, with fresh raspberries, apple peels and peanut brittle.

The Dregs

When I first opened the bottle I felt quite flat about it. It was pleasant, but mostly vanilla and caramel with not so much of the fruity or floral elements. It could be that I was getting over yet another cold kindly gifted to me by the three year old that lives under the same roof, or possibly the bottle needed a little time to open up.

The Fino is adding some extra fruity notes and a drying element, which is no bad thing at all. The dryness of the whisky entices you to take another sip. The spirit and the influence of the original cask are very much intact. I have gone from scoring this a five bordering on a six, to a seven that could easily be an eight. I need to remember it’s important to give the bottle time to show its true colours.

Glen Scotia is one of the few distilleries where enthusiasts rarely hark back to “the good old days”. Those good days are now, and I can only see them going from strength to strength.

Score: 7/10 RT


Review 2/2 - Drummond

Glen Scotia 9yo, Campbeltown Malts Festival 2024 release, Fino cask finish, unpeated, 56.2% ABV
£65 and wide availability

This is the third Glen Scotia Campbeltown Festival Release I’ve bought in as many years. I wasn’t yet hanging out in Whiskyville when the 2020 Tawny Port release came out, which by online chatter seems to have been one of the most popular Glen Scotia special releases of recent years.

But, I can say that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the last two years’ releases: the 2022 8 year old peated PX finish and last year’s 11 year old peated white port finish. As Fletcher and I mentioned in our review of the 11 year old, Glen Scotia and Loch Lomond Group deserve praise for continuing to offer us special festival edition that sets itself apart from so many other festival bottlings whose aim seems to be to break the bank.

Unlike the last two year’s releases, this one is unpeated. And, rather than the more common oloroso or PX sherry, this one was first matured in bourbon casks before finished “for a minimum of 6 months” we’re told in fino sherry casks. If you’re a sherry-head you’ll know that fino is the driest of sherries, made from Palomino grapes and aged under an alchemic layer of flor.

Nose

Bright citrus fruits alongside more mellow fruits such as melon and pears. Vanilla, some gentle oak, and a hint of burnt caramel. A salty coastal quality that is characteristic of the Glen Scotia spirit shines through.

Palate

Salty and sweet. Fruits again but the more mellow fruits step closer to centre stage, lightly sprinkled with sea salt. Zesty salted melon, if you will. Nice texture and mouthfeel; thick and oily. Definitely drier than last year’s white port finish, showing the fino qualities gently coming through. Lemon and vanilla, and I even want to say seaweed. Yep: seaweed in an old stone-lined harbour. Again very salty, in a great way. Pleasantly long finish: it’s drying my palate, leaving lemon, vanilla, and salted fruits.

The Dregs

Again, Glen Scotia offers us here an engaging, interesting – and most importantly, delicious – festival bottling for 2024.

Fino finishes are relatively rare in Scotch whisky, and I don’t know the reasons for this given the popularity of other types of sherry casks. Perhaps it has to do with the availability or cost of casks, or that distilleries don’t think that fino works with their spirit. Fortunately fino does work here: the savoury maritime qualities that I associate with Glen Scotia works wonderfully well with the fino casks and offers a delightful permutation of the spirit.

If you’re looking for an affordable festival bottling for 2024, forget over-priced Feìs Ìle and Spirit of Speyside bottles. Head to Campbeltown instead. It continues to give us so many reasons to.

Score: 7/10 DD


Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. RT / DD

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