TL:DR: A good entry-level dram. The apple orchard nose is impressive, while simpler on the palate. Fair quality for the price.
Vote*: 5.5 Between Average and Good
* Votes are based on the scoring scale used by Dramface, slightly modified to allow half-points
Not interested in my ramblings below? Skip to the review of Glenfiddich 12-year-old here or check the introduction to this leg of my journey
Since this is my first review, let’s get one thing out of the way. If you are expecting the common, press office-inspired, overview of Glenfiddich as an intro to the review, I am sorry to disappoint you. While some introduction is good for context, I am not getting into this exploration of whisky to rehash information already shared by better resources out there.
I research info on the drams I am sampling to learn new information on whisky, either in general or specifically on what I have in the glass. While I will always give some context the main goal of these thoughts before the reviews is to share facts & info that newcomers to whisky like me will hopefully find useful.
If you are looking for resources on distilleries, besides the many online ones, the ones I most often fall back to are Charles Maclean’s Whiskypedia and the Malt Whisky Yearbook.
Let’s get to the Glenfiddich 12.
Glenfiddich has long been the top-selling scotch single malt brand worldwide. In the past few years, it has alternated spots with Glenlivet (which I will review next). Both distilleries also top the list of spirit volumes produced every year, with 21 million litres per year. That’s a long-winded way of saying that even those with a very fleeting interest in single malt will be hard-pressed not to have come across Glenfiddich as a producer.
Fact of the day – the era of single malts
Glenfiddich was founded in 1886 and has been operational ever since. What might be less known is that Glenfiddich is widely recognised as the distillery which started today’s single malt market. Single malt is not a new product but blended malt was for a long time the main product marketed by Scottish distilleries. Glenfiddich changed this when it paved the way for single malt with the launch of Glenfiddich Pure Malt in 1963.
It is sobering to realise that single malt as we know it today is just 60 years old. Distilleries might brag about their centenary traditions but in reality, we are exploring a product that is very much still being explored and shaped by new distillers as well as older ones. Even the Glenfiddich 12 I am trying today is relatively new, originally launched in 2008
Learning moment concluded, let’s move to the tasting.
Review: Glenfiddich Our Original Twelve 12 year old
Specs
Price paid: € 33.90
Lot/bottled date: L00296012803
ABV: 40%
Natural colour: No
Non-chill filtered: No
Casks used: Oloroso and bourbon casks
Review
Neck pour: Simple, in a good way, with a predominant white fruit nose.
Colour: rich gold, like a Sauternes wine
Aromas: Intense. The nose transports me to an apple orchard on a warm autumn day. The dominant notes are a comforting mix of apple, pear, and apple blossom accompanied by lemon, honey, vanilla and a touch of malt and ginger. As the spirit opens up in the glass, some sherry influence emerges. Raisins, baking spice and a faint nutty note develop with some time in the glass.
Taste: Much simpler, simple sugar syrup and oak mostly. Some cereal and white fruit nose and a hint of spice are there but without the intensity found on the nose.
Finish: Relatively short. More fruity and with more sherry notes but predominantly oaky.
How does it behave with a drop of water?
I don’t normally add water when I drink whisky for fun unless it is a cask strength dram. Certainly not for a 40% whisky like this one. It is different when I am focusing on reviewing, or better, getting to know a whisky. Water addition, and a few minutes of rest, can reveal extra layers of aromas.
Adding about 10% water to Glenfiddich 12 does not change its character too much. The nose is slightly less complex, but it does smoothen out the oaky taste. This makes the dram just a touch sweeter and fruitier on the palate and puts the sherry notes more in the foreground.
To have the best of both worlds I would probably sniff the whisky neat and add a little water to drink it.
Conclusions
My expectations reviewing the Glenfiddich 12 were quite low. I had not tried it before and I was prejudiced from the first time I attended a whisky tasting. Not sure how Glenfiddich came up. I clearly remember some of the more experienced attendees to the tasting imparting some whisky-snob wisdom. “Don’t waste time on Glenfiddich, it’s like the Coca-Cola of whisky” they said. Suffice to say, I didn’t exactly seek out Glenfiddich after that.
Prejudices be damned. The Glenfiddich 12 is a good dram in its space as a consistent reliable product for casual malt drinkers and potentially a good entry point to whisky-nerdness. Sure, I would love for the taste and finish to be the same quality as the nose aromas, but it is not a whisky I regret drinking and one that showed me hints of what great malt can produce and drove my journey further ahead.
This is one person’s opinion, so don’t rely on it to form your own, Here are a few other reviews of the Glenfiddich 12 year old I enjoyed:
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