GLEN GRANT 1954 - GORDON & MACPHAIL

Elgin-based independent bottler and Distillery owner (Benromach), Gordon & Macphail has launched a campaign to enlighten people's perception on how much the cask means for the maturation of whisky.

The campaign is called 'The Wood Makes the Whisky' and comes complete with a booklet and a website (www.gordonandmacphail.com/wood) explaining the casks are chosen to match a specific spirit and how the wood interacts with the spirit and resulting in that lovely tipple we all enjoy so much. All the very well made angles on maturation incl. wood types, time and cask sizes are covered in both the booklet and on the very well made website - good job!

'The Wood Makes the Whisky' also comes with almost a handful of samples and I'll start in the deep end with this Glen Grant. No bottling year is given on the sample, but looking at bottling dates for the released versions, this is probably around or just over 50 years old.

The still at Glen Grant, April 29th 2011 © The Malt Desk

Glen Grant 1954 40%, 1st fill sherry butts, Gordon & Macphail

Colour is chestnut

Nose:

Picture by G&M

This just reeks of old whisky. Lots of red fruit and figs soaked in alcohol. Given some time the whole experience turn more towards tropical fruit, a direction I didn't expect from this old sherried number. Also in here are freshly polished hardwood and a little licorice.

Taste:
Quite a powerfull presence and incredibly mouthfilling even at only 40%. Overripe/browned apple, dark honey and Wiener Melange but heading in a spicy/herbal direction. Dark fruits, moist raisins springs to mind later. There's a mint theme popping up on the finish along with what can only be described as an almost smoky/toasted feel, which suits this oldie quite well as everything is very well integrated. This finish just goes on and on... and on :-)

This is most certainly a blast from the past - amazing stuff!

91/100!

Official sample provided by Gordon & Macphail