Category Archives: Glengoyne

Glengoyne 16, 2005 (Old Particular for K&L)

Posted on by


I must apologize to you first for being a liar. I said this was going to be a week of whiskies bottled by the SMWS from highland distilleries whose names start with “Glen”. Such were Monday’s Glenturret and Wednesday’s Glencadam. I must now inform you shamefacedly that while today’s whisky is from a highlands distillery whose name starts with “Glen”, it was in fact bottled by Old Particular (one of the Laing outfits) for my old buddies, K&L in California. I don’t know why I got it in my head that this was also a SMWS release and I will not blame you if you choose to never forgive me for this betrayal. There are other continuities though. The Glenturret and the Glengoyne were both 8 years old. Add those together and you have 16 and that’s how old this Glengoyne is. And like those two, this one was also bottled at a high strength—though just shy of 60% in this case.

Folly aside, this is a good opportunity to try a Glengoyne from a bourbon cask—the official releases are largely sherried. I do hope I will like it better than the last refill hogshead Glengoyne for K&L I sampled, which was good but nothing very special (this 21 yo). Let’s see. Continue reading →

Glengoyne 11, 2008 (Old Particular for K&L)

Posted on by

I usually have restaurant meal reports on Tuesdays but as this is officially still primarily a whisky blog let’s start the month with a whisky review instead. I’ll have a report tomorrow on our most recent takeout meal, which saw us return to Godavari in Eden Prairie.

Meanwhile, back to K&L’s exclusive casks from late 2020. I’ve had a pretty decent outing with them so far—only the Glenfiddich/Hector Macbeth 23 disappointed a bit and even that was far from bad; the Bunnahabhain 12, the Craigellachie 16, the Blair Athol 24 and the Glen Garioch 10 all came in above 85 points. That’s on my regular ratings scale. On my patented EW! or Everybody Wins! rating system they scored quite a bit higher but you should not bother with that unless you work at K&L. Okay, time to see what this Glengoyne is like. It’s not the best sign that it’s been finished in PX—often an indicator of a rescue attempt on something over-oaked. Let’s see if that’s the case. Continue reading →

Glengoyne 21, 1996 (Old Malt Cask for K&L)

Posted on by


So far this month I’ve reviewed three of K&L’s recent exclusive casks. They’ve all been 23 yo malts distilled in 1995 (Clynelish, Glen Moray, Allt-A-Bhainne). I liked them all a lot (87 points each) though I had differing estimations of the price to quality ratio each present. Today I have another recent K&L cask but this time it’s a 21 yo distilled in 1996. Will I finally go above or below 87 points?

This is a somewhat unusual whisky in that it’s a Glengoyne from a bourbon cask—most official Glengoyne is sherry cask driven. It’s also unusual because it’s an independent cask of Glengoyne. It’s not a name you see very often from the indies. On Whiskybase it’s the very rare distillery that doesn’t have any releases listed from prolific indies, Gordon & MacPhail and Signatory (and there are only 12 indie releases total listed for 2019). So it should be an interesting proposition all around. Let’s see what it’s like. Continue reading →

Glengoyne 12

Posted on by


Glengoyne is yet another distillery that I have reviewed very few malts from: only the OB 25 and 17 and a 14 yo from Malts of Scotland. Of these only the 25 yo really did it for me. Prior to starting the blog I had enjoyed the old Glengoyne 12 CS and the 21 yo. I’ve not had the 21 yo in a long time now but I do have a bottle of the 12 CS squared away. I’ll probably open it in a decade or two. Here in the meantime is the current, regular Glengoyne 12. I have no idea if it ever co-existed alongside the 12 CS. There is still a cask strength Glengoyne available but it is predictably now sold sans an age statement. And at some point the 17 yo seems to have turned into an 18 yo. I have to confess I haven’t really paid much attention to Glengoyne over the years, and in any case I am never very up on the ins and outs of distillery releases. Information you can get at other places. All I’m good for is dubious tasting notes of low utility.  Continue reading →

Glengoyne 25

Posted on by

Glengoyne 25
As I’ve said each time I’ve reviewed a Glengoyne (two occasions total before this one), I’ve not had much Glengoyne and have reviewed even less. I actually thought about purchasing this 25 yo for one of my local group’s premium tastings when it was first released in 2014—the price was “reasonable”, which is to say it was high but seemed reasonable compared to what’s asked these days for 25 yo official releases from most distilleries. In the end though I remembered that I hadn’t had very much Glengoyne and decided to exercise caution until I’d had a chance to taste it. That ended up taking a couple of years. In fact it wasn’t till this August that I finally got around to tasting it. This was at the same St. Paul gathering celebrating sherried whiskies at which I tasted the Glenfaclas 1968. As with that one, and some others from that night which will hopefully show up on the blog in the coming weeks, I brought a 2 oz sample of the Glengoyne 25 home for a more careful review, and here now is that review.  Continue reading →

Glengoyne 14, 2000 (Malts of Scotland)

Posted on by

Glengoyne 14, 2000, Malts of Scotland
I’ve not had very much Glengoyne. To a large degree this is because there isn’t much Glengoyne available from independent bottlers. Whiskybase lists only 125 independent releases over the years. This in itself is not so odd—there are a number of distilleries whose malts rarely show up from indies, and it’s not just the obscure ones pumping out malt for blends (when was the last time you saw an indie Oban?). Some do save what they don’t put out as single malt for their house/group blends (Talisker, for example), and some only put out single malt and so keep all/most of their product for themselves (Bruichladdich, for example). It’s the casks that move between blenders and brokers that are more likely to end up in the hands of the indies. What is unusual though is that none of the 125 indie releases of Glengoyne was/is from Gordon and MacPhail. And just as oddly, the indie that seems to have released the most Glengoyne is the relatively young Malts of Scotland—they have 30 releases, twice as many as the next highest, the Single Malt Whisky Society. What the explanation for these anomalies is, I don’t know. And you might say it’s not a very interesting matter either. In which case, you must be really resentful about having read all of this. Continue reading →

Glengoyne 17

Posted on by

Glengoyne 17
Glengoyne is in the Highlands (barely): the line dividing the Highlands from the Lowlands apparently runs in front of the distillery and the whisky is matured in warehouses in the Lowlands. This is, however, deeply uninteresting so let’s let it lie. Glengoyne prides itself on using only unpeated barley and are also noted for extensive use of ex-sherry casks for maturation. I’ve not had very many Glengoynes and the only one I’ve really liked a lot is the now discontinued (of course) Glengoyne 12 CS. I acquired a sample of this 17 yo in a swap. I tasted the first ounce soon after receiving it and liked it well enough to pick up a bottle while it was still deeply discounted in California. I decided to drink the second ounce now and review it as I plan to open the bottle soon and it seemed like a good idea to commit myself to notes on the sample and then see how the freshly opened bottle compares.
Continue reading →