Glencadam 18yo
Official Bottling | 46% ABV
RIP the age statement
The age statement is dying. It’s a long, slow and painful death, but we are seeing it right in front of our eyes.
Older whiskies are already out of most people’s budgets, including this writer. Want a core range single malt with a 20+ year age statement? Looking at a handful of the major retailers in the UK, the lowest price now appears to be Benromach 21 at around £140 a bottle, which is an increase of £20 on the price only a few months ago - and you’re only getting 43% for your money. I’m not spending that much on a bottle, so every official single malt above 20 years old is effectively gone.
Let’s drop down to the late teens and see what we need to spend for an 18 year old. Glen Moray, Speyburn, Deanston, Loch Lomond and Ledaig stand out here at around £80-90, but they’ve all gone up by anywhere between £10-20 in recent times. AnCnoc 18 was around £70 for a long time before a sudden jump to over £90 last year, and now seems to be creeping towards £100. We’re looking at a not too distant future of all these going beyond that £100 mark and therefore beyond what I would be willing to pay.
We’ll drop down again and look at the next major age statement of 15 years. There’s a few candidates at 40-43% from the likes of Knockando and Glenfiddich that fail to excite, so again we are looking at Speyburn for around £65, which is another that;s seen a chunky price rise in recent months. The distillery I’m reviewing today, Glencadam, has also risen from a position in the low £50s to almost £70 today. Similar comments apply to Glen Scotia. They’re still in reach, but are inching away from us in big jumps rather than gentle increases over a period of time. How long can Clynelish 14yo hold on at £50? It’s surely only a matter of time before Diageo “do a Talisker” and give that a more ‘premium position’ in the market, especially when you consider how hot almost everything Clynelish is these days.
If we move down to the 10-12 year old age statements, how long do you think they will be available for under £50? There’s still some great choice here, but we’ve gone from a position of lots of options for under £40, to pretty much everything 46% non-chill filtered being £40+ and often into £50+ territory. Although the rise is much slower at this age range, I suspect we may soon see a time where more and more distilleries are releasing young, non-age statement whiskies to plug a gap in the market that has been created by these price rises. Perhaps some will choose to drop the age statement altogether.
Newer distilleries such as Ardnamurchan aren’t worried about age statements. They are completely transparent and you can get all the information you could ever want behind a QR code. A similar model has been adopted by others newer to the market who have a reluctance to be tied down to producing a 10 or 12 year old product year on year. Those distillers, which unfortunately only make up a tiny proportion of the market, are on the whole good at keeping us informed. The big issue is most of the established distilleries aren’t as open with us. If and when they drop the age statements we might not know anything beyond it being at least three years old.
Young whisky isn’t a bad thing, in fact, it can be very good. We’ll simply adjust and get used to it being all we have. We’ll reminisce just like those people who remember the days of high-quality and easy-to-buy Macallan of the 80s and 90s, when Port Ellen sat on the shelf unloved and only the most geeky of geeks had heard of Brora. We’ll annoy the younger people by telling them about the time we could buy 18 year old whisky without having to take out a small loan, possibly while drinking the latest three year old whisky from a couple of blokes with beards who’ve bought an industrial unit and a couple of stills. Hey, I’m not knocking it.
I haven’t even mentioned independent bottlers yet, but it’s clear they’re being forced to release younger and younger whiskies in order to keep the costs of their bottlings down, with single digit age statements an ever more common sight, as well as a penchant for cask finishing. This is presumably to elevate otherwise fairly average stock that they have access to at reasonable prices. Make it dark brown, sweet and taste of red berries and most will be happy enough. Some of those work rather well, others not so much.
Inflation is a big issue right now, but these are much more than inflationary rises. Has the popularity of scotch whisky put a major strain on stocks of older liquid? Is this simply a reaction to other distilleries premiumising the older age statements and others following suit? Are the people jumping on the cask investment bandwagon ruining it for us all? Probably all of the above.
Are we looking at a future where the double figure age statement is a thing of the past for most drinkers, or at least a rare luxury? Maybe not in the next couple of years, but perhaps in five or 10. It’s steadily inching that way. The only saviour would be either a major cooling or a complete collapse in the whisky market and that may well happen. However, that comes with the major negative of the livelihoods of people working in the industry being adversely impacted. I realise I’m asking a lot of questions and I am genuinely interested in all your thoughts.
The market can’t keep growing at the rate it has been. It’s not sustainable.
Review
Glencadam 18yo, Official bottling 07/04/16 code, 46% ABV
£90, but patchy availability (temporary discontinuation)
I think I need to lighten the mood a little.
Every year my wife and I take a trip to Cornwall. It’s one of our favourite places and one of the things we had in common when we met was family holidays spent in that rugged coastal county in south west England. Now we have a daughter, we want to share it with her too.
I don’t have the desire to travel and see all the wonders the world has to offer like some people. I find travel quite stressful especially if it involves an airport. The farthest afield I’ve been is Turkey and even then I ended up stranded due to an Icelandic volcano.
When on holiday I usually take a few bottles and several samples to give me a good selection each evening, and with it being summer, I always take something light and easy going. Very little in the way of sherried drams make the cut. This year I travelled light on the whisky front. A bottle of Kilkerran 8 bourbon cask and a Maclean’s Nose were all that came with me. The difference this year was I’d discovered a small bottle shop in the picturesque town of St Ives the previous year and fully planned on picking something up.
One thing I do remember about that shop was their whisky selection behind the counter, and in particular their bottles of Glencadam 18 and 21, but I didn’t expect either to be still there when I walked in a year later. I peered over the counter top and low and behold there they are, still sitting in the exact same place and at the same price; £89.99 for the 18 and £110 for the 21. How do I remember they were the same price? Well, I took a picture on my previous visit, which just happened to be exactly a year to the day. There were quite a lot of bottles still there, including some old labelling Benromach.
Both Glencadams are not insignificant sums for a bottle of liquid, but I came prepared to spend a little bit of money, and with the £100 barrier proving to be a slight obstacle in my mind, I went for the 18. Later that evening with the sun shining and not a cloud in the sky, I took myself off with the bottle to find a nice spot to watch the sunset over the Atlantic ocean and break the seal on the bottle. I found a comfortable looking spot on the sand dunes and poured a glass. Immediately the whisky was as wonderful as the picturesque scene in front of me. Little flies were interested too, in both me and my Glencairn, but I let them have their fun while I enjoyed the dram.
Over the next couple of days one thing kept popping into my mind, and it’s the 21 year old. It’s £110 and I’d already spent plenty of money, but it was nagging me. Both of these whiskies are discontinued due to a break in production between 2000 and 2003, when the distillery was mothballed by Allied Distillers before being bought by Angus Dundee. The 18yo will be back soon, but the 21 can’t come back until 2024-2025, and if the 18 isn’t back yet, it suggests we may have to wait longer than that. Also, what price will it be when it does return?
As we’ve established there’s no core range single malt on the market with a 21 year old age statement for £110 any more. Realising this, I made the decision to go back and buy it. In reality, I probably made that decision not long after leaving the store the first time, but I had to at least have the battle with my brain and show a breadcrumb of resistance. My wife’s gasp of, “I knew it” when I told her I was buying the bottle let me know precisely how inevitable this was.
When I got the 21 year old home I noticed the packaging had seen better days. The edge of the lid on the tube has rusted, but thankfully the bottle looked pristine with a fill level well into the neck. The bottle code’s date is 09/10/15.
This bottle has likely sat in that shop a stone’s throw from the harbour for almost eight years, with the salty sea air perhaps contributing to that lid corroding. I’m immediately curious to take a look at the 18 and discover it was bottled on 07/04/16. The whisky stock doesn’t appear to move quickly in this particular store. I wonder which bottles will still be there next year? There was still at least one bottle of 21 left, maybe if I am lucky I can replace it again for £110. That would be nice.
Nose
Quite restrained at first, but after a while orchard fruits – both apples and pears - along with pineapple cubes, fresh mango and a suggestion of coconut as there. There’s a dry, dusty pebble earthiness too, with butter candy, floral white flowers, polished wood, barley and grass.
Palate
An intriguing combination of sweet apple, pear and pineapple, with sour chocolate limes and light, bitter oak. There’s honey and vanilla, perfume which reminds me of hair spray, but certainly not in a negative way and ginger providing a little background heat. Light oak and ginger continue into the finish, with hazelnut and almond milk. Beautifully balanced.
The Dregs
Glencadam have nice little taglines on the labelling of their core range bottles. The 10yo is The Rather Delicate, the 15yo is The Rather Dignified, the 18yo The Rather Polished and the 21yo drops the word ‘rather’ and is simply called The Exceptional.
I haven’t opened the 21 yet, but hopefully when I do soon I can review it for you. I missed the 13yo, which when released did have The Re-awakening on the front of its label to celebrate 13 years since the distillery re-opened in 2003, but that appears to have been dropped on the bottle I picked up recently and the words Small Batch placed at the bottom of both the bottle and tube, with a nod to its old name in the blurb beneath. Maybe that 13yo should be given a new name. The Rather Divine? I’m sure somebody in the marketing department will be able to do better than that.
Incidentally if anybody at Glencadam is reading this, please don’t modernise that label. It’s perfect the way it is. If only somebody at Glen-Mo-Ran-Gie had seen it before their recent labelling disaster.
The entire age stated core range from Glencadam is matured in ex-bourbon casks, which serves to highlight the light and fruity character of the distillate. There is a non-age statement Reserva Andalucia which is finished in oloroso casks, as well as multiple cask finishes among the extended range. There is also a 40% NAS called Origin 1825 and another called American Oak Reserve, but I have little interest in seeking either out.
The 10 year old is one of my favourite whiskies and I’m never without a bottle. I can still, at the time of writing, just about buy it for under £40 with one or two retailers, but most have breached that £40 barrier now. It may be described as being Rather Delicate on the label, but it really jumps out of the glass when you nose it. It’s fresh and vibrant, with sweet and sour orchard fruits and banana. The palate shares many of those traits too, with a lovely little fizz to it.
This 18yo is in fact the more delicate of the pair. Try this in a blind lineup or after a more powerful dram and it will likely be lost. In isolation it is a beautifully fruity and floral whisky. It is the complete antithesis to a lot of young whisky we have on the market today, that relies on very active casks to provide much of the flavour. Time in Glencadam’s traditional dunnage warehouses has shaped this as much, if not more, than the contents of the previous casks, which I suspect would be mostly refill bourbon casks. It may be fairly quiet, it may be fairly subtle, but it’s resplendent.
This is the issue I have with the current explosion of prices for older whiskies, there is no substitute for quiet casks where the whisky is permitted time to develop. There are exciting things coming out from both the new distilleries and some of the more established players, whiskies we can be passionate about, but it’s a crying shame that future generations of whisky drinkers will rarely get the opportunity to experience whisky that has been afforded the time to develop slowly.
Score: 8/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. RT