Glendronach Distillery Hand-fill
2012 Oloroso Cask | 61% ABV
Keeping the passion alive
It’s inevitable with anything we love that distance makes the heart grow fonder.
That’s not a reflection of those or the things we love, it’s just human nature. We are fickle creatures and while structure and routine can be good for us in so many contexts, it’s also important to see variety and change to remain stimulated and motivated.
A prime example is our own Roy, who takes well-earned breaks over the Scottish summer and frequently remarks that in the act of doing so, rejuvenates his passion for whisky and interacting with the community he’s fostered around it.
Some of you may have noticed fewer reviews of mine lately. Certainly some would be glad of that (lest we mention Springbank anywhere, eh?) and I really can’t blame anyone for that - doubly so considering the slew of gifted Dramface writers filling the schedule. I haven’t been idle - there are always too many work hours in the week for me - most of them revolving around making, selling, researching or thinking about alcohol. I love it, but after months on end of 50+ hours a week on the subject, it can be difficult to leverage my haggard, grizzled neurons into creative output.
Burnout is always a looming factor and at times for the sake of what we love, we must step back and reset. Lately this has come in the form of a random interest; chess.
It’s a game I’ve always enjoyed since learning the rules as a wee lad, but something I’ve never considered with anything more than passing interest as an evening pastime. I played against my father and grandfather when the mood took them, and I suspect they let me win far more than I ever rightly deserved, but there was never much drive to look into the game with serious intent. I didn’t see it as a serious game - of course, and that’s now changed.
It’s been more than a decade since those days have settled comfortably into the greyscale plains of memory and naturally my mind and time have been preoccupied with much else since then. I remember thinking when The Queen’s Gambit came out in 2020 that I ought to revisit the game, but a combination of university, that dreaded plague, working, training and maintaining a relationship through a recent engagement all superseded such notions.
When I rewatched the show recently though, I took more notice of some of the details within: Names of players, openings and play styles which I’d dismissed as being functionally unnecessary to following the plot. I’m not sure if it’s a byproduct of getting older or just some novel idiosyncrasy of the men in my family, but it seems that such details simply can’t go un-mined these days; everything must be researched to a degree of satisfactory understanding, otherwise it buzzes in my brain like an angry wasp when I’m trying to fall asleep.
As a result I’ve gone through the looking glass a bit; YouTube tutorials, wiki-pages surmising the lives of great players, transcripts of famous matches, the whole shebang. It’s fascinating. I suspect it might be some of the apparent links to maths involved; everything from the number of possible positions over the course of a game to the way certain tactics are employed to maximise material gained, or open up lines of manoeuvrability - the residual logician in me loves it.
I should qualify this obsessive chatter by saying I’m really not very good. I would cringe to even mention Elo approximations, and certainly I lose far more CPU matches than I win. In fact, if you look up rank amateur in the dictionary, there should be a photo of me trying to cobble together a mating net, oblivious to an imminent mate-in-two counterattack. Rather, the interest is in the game itself. And as with any budding interest, the greatest rate of growth is early in the piece, as well as the greatest sense of exploration and wonder.
Anyway, chess has been great fun and a nice change of pace for my thinking lately. Whisky is a wonderful, multifaceted drink which becomes exponentially more complicated when you factor in the people, communities, economies and all the other tertiary stuff which come with the territory. It’s nice to change gears to a space encapsulated wholly within 64 squares, each player starting with equity of opportunity, bound by the same rules and regulations as all other players.
The game is simple, but the mental warfare is not.
Review
Glendronach Distillery Hand-filled, 05/06/2012 - 05/10/2022, Single Oloroso Cask, 61% ABV
c.£125-£150 distillery only
I thought I might also try a change of pace in the type of whisky I reviewed. I haven’t made secret of my tumultuous relationship with sherry bombs and other cask-driven styles of whisky, but it’s winter down under and there’s a certain appeal to hibernating with something rich in the glass next to a crackling fire, and in the spirit of adaptability and variety this seemed a prime candidate. Not only do we have one of the most publicly acclaimed sherry-bomb-geared distilleries, but a single oloroso cask, cask strength hand-fill at that. Public acclaim continues to mean fairly little to me without more context or a trusted palate going in to bat, however the specs do look good on paper. Let’s just hope there’s no cask taint.
Full disclosure - this isn’t my bottle, rather it was loaned by a good friend and co-worker that came by it from within the industry. There’s no bias or quid pro quo shadiness from said industry interaction, I’m just a very grateful to have such a good friend that’s happy to share such exclusive liquid; cheers Steve.
Nose
Nice and clean. Toffee apples, stewed red fruits, milk chocolate, caffe latte, cinnamon-led baking spices, a hint of youthful malt, though nothing overt. With time comes some mild wood polish, Amburana spirals and moderately young brandy. A dash of water (around 10% volume dilution) rouses some flowering lilies and newly-filled cedar humidor.
Palate
In line with expectations from the nose. Dense fruits, plums, raisins, dates, perhaps even persimmons, stewed, baked, fresh and otherwise. Baking spices lead again with cinnamon, more milk chocolate, a touch of the underlying malt, candied orange peel and soft nuttiness; mostly roast almond with just a tinge of oily peanut. Moderate sweet florals on retronasal.
The Dregs
Again, I have a difficult relationship with most heavily sherry cask matured whisky. This then, for a sherry bomb, is everything I could hope for with none of the drawbacks. There are no sulphur issues, the cask is rich and varied in its extractive flavours, the distillate still has a moderate presence, probably thanks to the age, and there is generally some pretty good balance.
It’s still a bit sweet for my taste, but that’s personal preference and says nothing about the whisky as a representative of the sherry bomb sub-category. The only criticism I might level is that it’s not immensely complex, but I would say that for the age, style, and the distillery, there aren’t a huge number of bottlings which are. This is a good whisky, and I think most sherry cask fans would fawn over it. As it is, I’m fairly impressed. Props to Dr. Barrie, Glendronach distillery and the Brown-Forman team at large for releasing whiskies like this.
As an aside, I only have a cursory idea of what you might pay for such a thing in my domestic market ($500 AUD or so on secondary at a glance) so I haven’t included value proposition in the score, but had I paid for this it would almost certainly be losing a full point for value. The dangers of being an in vogue distillery, yet again.
Score: 7/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. TK