24 drams till Christmas tasting #5: Glengoyne Teapot Dram Batch 002

Dram data:
Distillery: Glengoyne
Bottler: Original Bottling
Distilled: 1998+2002
Bottled: 2013
Age: ca. 11 years (officially NAS)
Limitation: 3200 bottles
Casks: Sherry
Alcohol: 58,5%
unchillfiltered; uncoloured
Whiskybase link

Tasting notes:
Colour: dark amber
The nose starts off slightly alcoholic with dark sweet fruit notes underneath. Since this is my last dram from the bottle (a minute of silence, please), I know to add three espresso spoons of water. Let some time pass. Ah ha! Much better! Glengoyne is a fruity and very clean distillate which works very well in ex-sherry casks. Very clean alcohol, dry-ish oloroso sherry (it’s not really sweet on the nose), spicy european oak with citrus fruits on top. Fruity notes of raisins, dates, fresh figs, sweet cherries. cocoa, cinnamon, cloves and ground coffee add further complexity. The palate (diluted) continues  this story: Very clean, fruity-zesty raw distillate meets quality oak casks. Perfect balance between dark fruit sweetness and dry sherry, coating the entire mouth, oily. A dark fruit puree (dates, figs, cherries, raisins, plums) meets milk chocolate, molasses, oriental spices (cinnamon, cloves, a touch of nutmeg) and a hint of oak. The long finish is slightly nippy upon swallowing and on the dry side with aforementioned dark fruit puree and spices which take a long time to fade. .

Verdict:
“Teapot dram”. At first glance this might just be one of these exchangable NAS releases flooding today’s market – cheap young whisky sold at a premium with a nice story attached. In this case the story is about the teapot at the distillery into which the workers poured parts of their three daily drams if three was too much for them…
You would be mistaken in the case of the “Glengoyne Teapot Dram”. First of all, it isn’t really a NAS dram. There’s no age statement on the bottle or tube, but you can find out the malts contained were distilled in 1998 and 2002, making it a roughly 11 year-old whisky as it was bottled in 2013. And what a dram! Rich, clean, intense, sweet-dry sherry stale, highly dilutable with water too. I am really sad to see my bottle go as I have no more – and subsequent releases have lost their (hidden) age statements and increased quite a bit in price… sign of the times, malt mates, sign of the times…

Score: 89/100
(Nose: 89 Palate: 90 Finish: 90)