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Glengoyne
Glengoyne began life in 1833 as the Burnfoot distillery. Founded by the Edmonstone family, the site lay just north of the government-defined line separating the highlands from the lowlands. Even today, spirit is produced in the highlands, yet matures in warehouses across the road, in the lowlands.
Burnfoot was eventually sold in 1876 to the Lang Brothers, a well established blending firm from Glasgow, founded in 1861 by Alexander & Gavin Lang. The brothers sought out the distillery as a means to secure a regular supply of malt for their blends. After renaming the plant Glengoyne, the Lang Bros. company was sold in 1965 to the Robertson & Baxter Group, later to become part of Edrington (Macallan, Highland Park etc).
Under Edrington’s stewardship, Glengoyne first began to appear as a single malt in the early 1990’s before eventually being sold on again, this time to Ian Macleod Distillers in 2003. Today, the Glengoyne single malt is a brand known for its intrinsic quality and the distillery itself is an extremely popular tourist destination in it’s own right.
Glengoyne bottle at a range of age statements from 10 to 25 years old but on this occasion I will be concentrating my attention on a release from Glasgow-based, independent bottler, Douglas Laing. Aged for 9 years, the malt has been bottled at 46% abv, at natural colour and without the use of chill filtration.
The Whisky
Smell: Buttery Malt & Biscuit notes with Cream & Vanilla and a touch of Apples and Pears.
Taste: A touch of Pepper with Honey & Vanilla. Then there’s that typical Glengoyne Malt character with Biscuit and Cereal notes.
Thoughts: At younger age, Glengoyne is perhaps the most malty of malts. A great deal of the raw ingredients that made the whisky seem to have made it into the bottle. That’s not to say the cask brought nothing, though. The spirit has settled down well over its 9 years and the end result is a nice balance to the dram. £35 is fantastic value for money for such a dram too. It’s from one single cask, it’s 46% and it’s un-chill-filtered. Proof that bargains can still be found in the ever-inflating world of Scotch whisky.
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