Scotland, Speyside: Single malt whisky through the producing distilleries: history, making, production and tasting notes

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Glenfiddich

Description of the whisky

The distillery

Glenfiddich distillery
Glenfiddich Distillery
Dufftown, Keith
Banffshire
AB55 4DH
+44 1340 820 000
Owner: William Grant & Sons Ltd
Creation date 1887

photos

Just like Glenfarclas and Springbank, Glenfiddich is still driven by the founders family. This is nowadays very unusual in the scotch whisky industry. William Grant founded the distillery and used therefore second hand material bought from Elisabeth Cumming, from the Cardhu distillery.
This idea was not based on economic reasons, but William Grant refused to start a distillery without knowing for sure the stills were working properly. William has been working for over 20 years in the whisky industry as a manager and accountant at the Mortlach distillery before founding Glenfiddich.
The first spirit came out of the stills during Christmas Eve in 1887, and the distillery became quickly very successful. After five years, William Grant started building his second distillery, Balvenie.
After the bankrupt of one of his best clients, Robert Pattison, William Grant began making his blends by himself, and was very successful with his first products called "Standfast" and "Best Procurable".
The Grant's distilleries were amongst the only ones which continued producing their whisky during the two world wars.
One of William's sons, Charles Grant bought the distillery Glendronach, and sold it forty years later to William Teacher.
The present owners of the distillery represent the fifth generation of Grants managing the business. To be sure to be able to produce their blends, the Grants must guarantee the follow up of grain whisky. In order to achieve this, the family decided the construction of the Girvan grain distillery on the ground of the Lowland "Ladyburn" distillery which closed in 1976.
Glenfiddich was the very first scotch distillery to export its single malt outside of Scotland. This was a kind of revolution in the world of whisky.
In 1990 the family Grant founded a new distillery called Kininvie.
Glenfiddich is much more than a famous single malt, it is a real ambassador or Scotland around the world.
About 90% of the production is sold as single malt, and the remaining 10% are used in the Grant's blend.

The whisky

A propos des notes de dégustation Your own tasting notes

List of the bottles

Description of the distillery

Glenfiddich
whisky
O.B. Caoran Reserve 16 1/2
Old Reserve 0
Reserve 14
Solera Reserve 17
21 years 16 1/3
See Help 0 - 40 € 40 - 80 € 80 - 120 € 120 - 160 € 160 - 200 € 200 - 240 € 240 - 280 € > 280 €
 Glenfiddich: official bottlings
 

Glenfiddich Reserve
Age
12 years
Alcohol
 40°
Bottling
 Official
=25 euros< 25 euros
 
 The colour is gold, the nose fresh and oscillates between fruity (apple, peer) and vegetal (cut hay) fragrances.
The dry palate confirms the nose, and detects some peat hints.
The finish comes back to malted barley, and is not very long.
 The nose recognizes immediately a slightly malted Speyside. A little Speyside, without surprises. This first impression is confirmed in the mouth. No flavour explosion as in some other malts from the same region. A good little whisky. The finish is short. This malt is probably the best seller world around, but stays a little whisky... But its price makes it a good quality-price rating.
 

Comments by Henrick Johansson

Appearance: Pale gold or slightly darker.
Nose: Simple but elegant. Dry with fruity hints. Lots of pear and kiwi with some fragrant rosy scents. Diluted nose becomes more floral and fragrant. Lavender hints and apple-mints appear. Again, very pleasant, but simple and straight forward..
Body: Light Palate: Pretty sharp, dry. Some fruit carries over but the palate is even simpler and less complex than the nose. Medium finish which becomes a little woody towards the end.
Easy to drink and good, but un-interesting.

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Glenfiddich Old Reserve
Age
 12 years
Alcohol
 43°
Bottler
 Official
=25 euros< 25 euros
 
 
 
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Glenfiddich Millennium
21 years
Age
 21 years
Alcohol
 40°
Bottling
 Official
=25 euros=25 euros=25 euros< 25 euros
 
 
Undoubtedly a good sample of Speyside whisky. The well balanced nose is not too complex. A hint of spices. The palate confirms this first nose impression. But one could be surprised to know this whisky has spent 21 years in a cask. One could expect some more from a whisky of that age. The finish is relatively short, and confirms the spicy impression.

A second tasting, months later, just confirmed the first impression. Just a good whisky...

The nose is clearly on cereals with a hint of spices (pepper) and a touch of sweet citrus fruit. In the palate, an impression of smoothness too, with a slightly acid touch, vanilla hints and a very discrete nut hint on the background. A nice range of tastes, however without an evident contrast which would give it the complexity it misses... A quite short finish between wood and pepper, where both ingredients are rather diluted.
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Glenfiddich Solera Reserve
Age
 15 years
Alcohol
 40°
Particularity

Solera Method
Bottling
 Official
=25 euros< 25 euros
 
The colour is gold. The nose is slightly peaty, with chocolate hints.
The palate is oily and fruity (pear), spicy and slightly chocolaty.
The warm finish comes back to spices
A light peat hint delights the nose immediately. The fragrances in the mouth are pleasant and the malty sweetness, so typical for the area is present as well. A very good whisky, balancing the sweetness and the character. The particular maturing method made a very great and surprisingly malt. If Glenfiddich is the world around best seller, it is not known as producing the best whisky. This bottle is the exception.

This whisky distinguishes itself by the sweetness of his smell and taste. The second tasting just confirms the first one. A nose dominated by a quite malt and a rather round taste. This whisky is however far away from the whiskies with strong personality, but there is nothing wrong with it.

The third tasting just confirmed the two first ones.

Comment by Henrik Johansson

Appearance: Like new engine oil with sparkling pearls. Old Gold.
Nose: Mellow and warming. Quite clean with fruity scents. Slightly oily and medicinal, a bit of rose scent, very fragrant. Develops a bit of smoke with water, burnt grass and stronger fruitiness.
Flavour: Smooth mouth feel. Very clean and creamy. Oily, dense and chemical, but very mellow. Like scented children's medicine and cocked vegetables.
Development: The dram stands up very well against air exposure. After an hour; light sweat drop, the slight smoke I noticed earlier has now vanished almost entirely to be replaced by a mossy aroma. Still feels sort of chemical.
Comments: A nice dram to go with coffee or a cigar.

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Glenfiddich
Caoran Reserve
Age
 12 years
Alcohol
 43°
Bottler
 Official
Particularity
 Caoran reserve is the result of mixing bourbon casks with sherry and Islay malt cask.
=25 euros< 25 euros
Glenfiddich Caoran reserve
COLOUR : yellow gold.
NOSE : fruity (peach) and liquorice, it develops on heady perfumed flowers (peony, lily), on a background of smoky notes.
Palate : first liquorice, and then fruity (apricot, peach). It is also marked by a pleasant menthol and vanilla freshness.
The finish is smooth and reveals the fruity notes (ripe peer) which are typical of Glenfiddich, on a background of smoky malted barley.

(La Maison du whisky)

The nose is first dry and without depth, before developing discrete fruity aromas. The vanilla is present. In the palate, the first impression is rather sweet, before developing on more pronounced tastes, with some light spices, without losing the vanilla background. The finish recalls strongly the vanilla, with some far smoke hints.

At the second tasting, the nose was extremely discrete an only some remote hints of malt with a touch of smoke appeared. The palate is slightly fruity, dry and a kind of smokey veil preceeds some more bitter aromas. The whole shows a lack at character, except may be the finish, which is quite nice, first slightly fruity and then dominated by a kind of woody bitterness.
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Speyside

Speyside Map

The Speyside area is situated at the North of the Cairngorm mountain and goes to the Moray firth. It is delimited by two rivers: the Findhorn at the West side and the Deveron on the East side.
The area is named after the river Spey. Most of the distilleries take their water in one of its affluents; the Fiddich, the Livet or the Avon.
About sixty distilleries from Speyside are described on this site.

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