Drink Review: Glengoyne 15 Year Old

A sweet and rounded 15 year old dram from Glengoyne, made using air dried barley and about as unsmoky as a whisky can get. It’s a rich mix of 1st fill sherry and bourbon matured whisky, rounded out with some refill casks.

Glengoyne 15 Year Old Review:

Buy Glengoyne 15 Year Old

I chose to break out Glengoyne 15 as a palate cleanser after a very smokey tasting session involving almost exclusively Islay malts. It worked brilliantly. It was the perfect antidote to the peat monsters that had preceded it. The Glengoyne 15 yr old is also very nice any time, however.

Aged 15 years. 46%ABV. Matured in a mixture of American oak and ex-sherry and bourbon casks. No colourant added, non-chill filtered and bottled at cask strength from a single cask.

Nose: A light, fruity nose with a little hint of the maritime drying influence of the seaside locations. Heather blooms, honey, light vanilla, toffee, cherries, sultanas, orange notes, raisins and apricots. With a little water some nice notes come up – dark chocolate, burnt cake, more dried fruits.

Palate: Tastes at first like it could be a young, sweet, unpeated, fruity but not excessively so, young Cragganmore. The initial sweetness reveals a hint of acetone but just a hint. Sweet tangerines, thick, savoury honey, a hint of peat, orange, toffee and golden syrup. It’s very full -the palate serves to greatly round out the nose and the light sherry influence is very evident. With water it becomes buttery.

Finish: Sweet and not too long. The heat from the ABV doesn’t linger for too long but the effects of the water are slightly more lasting.

Glengoyne 15 Year Old Review:

This is a well-crafted whisky, with lovely, rounded flavour and a little hint of peat, despite not being peated. The only thing I’d change is maybe spice up the nose slightly with something like cinnamon or cocoa.

Glengoyne 15 with some water

This dram has been tasted as part of a from a bottle kindly supplied by Glengoyne. I was very generous with this dram in my Glengoyne 15 review because I loved it so much. I really can’t recommend Glengoyne 15 enough – it really is a pleasure to drink. If anything, it proves that unpeated whiskies can be more than just background flavour and can deliver more rounded fruitiness than their heavily peated cousins.

I’m writing this in the very early hours of the morning, it’s been a long, interesting and occasionally smoky day tasting 15 year old whiskies. I’m proud of my notes, proud of my palate and I’m proud of the malts.

This dram has been decided on by one of those malts. Glengoyne 15 – a very fine dram, and one which I would urge you all to track down. I am both very tired and very happy to have had the opportunity to drink it.

As we have seen, a 15 year old whisky can have a lot of depth of flavour, with a wide variety of notes. There can be fruity notes, woody notes, maritime notes, peaty notes -it all depends on the make up of the casks, and where they come from. It can age with grace, and display a nice balance between fresh, floral notes and more rounded raisin and sherry fruit notes. The one consistent thing is that it doesn’t burn hot, or linger in the mouth. You don’t have to feel overwhelmed by it, just enjoy it.

Balance: It’s not too strong, too weak or too hot.

It’s not too strong, too weak or too hot. Complexity: It should be complex but not overwhelming. There should be lots of different flavours, with none particularly strong or off-putting.

It should be complex but not overwhelming. There should be lots of different flavours, with none particularly strong or off-putting. Aroma: It should smell of at least one fruit (ideally more than one, it could be light, it could be heavy, it should be a note which sticks around but is not the only dominant it should be pleasantly complex)

It should smell of at least one fruit (ideally more than one, it could be light, it could be heavy.