This week’s booze review is of another young whisky released about a decade ago. A little over a decade ago in this case. This Glendronach 11 was distilled in May 2002 and bottled in December 2013. The label on my bottle says that it was “specially selected by and bottled for Whiskybase.com”—and that is indeed where I bought my bottle in early 2015—but I think this was a split cask, with half going somewhere else. I don’t think Whiskybase bottled all 701 bottles that came out of this oloroso sherry cask. Now, you may be thinking that 701 bottles is a lot at 57.2% even  from a sherry butt and all I can say to you is that this is Billy Walker era Glendronach we are talking about. The whisky was bottled from a single oloroso cask but that doesn’t mean that all of it spent all 11 years in it or that multiple casks of different types didn’t get re-racked together into this oloroso cask for a short while before bottling happened. Of course, we’ll never know. On the plus side, Whiskybase did always make good selections. I will say though that the first few pours from this bottle—which I opened a few days ago—were not very promising, with the whisky tasting quite oaky and raw. Let’s hope it’s calmed down now as I take my notes.

Glendronach 11, 2002 (57.2%; oloroso butt 2751 for Whiskybase; from my own bottle)

Nose: Oak, powdered ginger, cherry, a bit of dried orange peel. Sweeter as it sits with the bit of orange peel turning to a bit of hard orange candy; some toffee too. Water pushes the oak back a fair bit and softens it up—more of the toffee now.

Palate: The oak is dominant on arrival and it’s more raw than on the nose. Hot at full strength; decent texture. I’m going to let this sit for a bit.The oak calms down a bit with a lot of airing and the sweeter notes emerge here as well. Water makes it spicier, pulling out a fair bit of cinnamon and the powdered ginger turns to ginger biscuits/cookies.

Finish: Gets hotter on the finish and the oak expands further before subsiding. Develops as on the palate with air/time and water.

Comments: It drinks like a mix of bourbon and a young sherry bomb. Would I have liked this better 10 years ago? Maybe. I don’t find it terribly interesting now. Hopefully, it will grow more to my taste as the bottle stays open.

Rating: 82 points.