Scotch TN: Glen Garioch Founders and 1994

Lately tasted and now opining on one of the more 'old fashioned' of the Highland Scotches, Glen Garioch.

Key portion: Glen Garioch is scotch very much in the old Highlands tradition, before Speyside came to dominate the Highlands style. It's hearty, for sure, and robust and rustic, with undisguised pure malt aromas and flavors to match.


Glen Garioch 1797 Founder's Reserve
An old style of Highlands whisky that reaches back over two hundred years, when it was more about heather and less about peat. This is a rustic style of Highlands whisky, with loads of fresh, crisp apple fruit up front leaping right over to the barrel notes of vanilla and rich brown sugar and nudging ever so gently into the spice zone. At 48% abv, or 96 Proof, it's sturdy and bold and worthy of its single malt nature and Highland origins.

Glen Garioch 1994 (Bottled in 2011)
Barreled in 1994, bottled in 2011. That works out to about 17 years of slow and gentle maturation in used American oak barrels. Local water, native barley, yeast, fermentation, multiple pot still distillation, then into the barrel for 17 years.

There's peat in this one---but it's in the nature of banked embers glowing in the dark rather than than raspy smoke; this peat is , light, herbal and well integrated into the whisky, and there's a bright, lifting floral note that draws you in.

Yet, oh my, the power is there. Bottled at a hearty and hefty 53.9% abv, or 107.8 Proof, this is a powerful scotch, yet for all that does not immediately seem hot or scorching. Perhaps it was chancy for the master distiller to offer this at such high alcohol; I think not, though, for the scotch can surely handle it, and it leads to a slightly sweeter rather than a hotter expression in the mouth. To insure as much flavor as possible remains, Glen Garioch is non-chill filtered before bottling, so you're getting the unalloyed expression of a classic single malt.

This may be a rustic style, but it's also one of those 'contemplative' scotches, where you can just sit quietly and let the aromas waft up to your nose and are content to sip occasionally and roll the whisky over your tongue to slowly savor the moment for as long as possible.

Full article:
http://violentfermentation.blogspot.com/2014/02/glen-garioch-single-malt-for-auld-lang.html

[Jenise]

Interesting note. Scotches to me were previously divided between single malts and blends, and I'm aware of some categorical differences within those areas. But "old fashioned" and "rustic" are new descriptors to me, and if I were to after reading this note try to interpolate what 'modern' would then be, I'm having to guess lots of peat would be involved. Would that then make Talisker, say, a 'modern' scotch?

Interesting note. Scotches to me were previously divided between single malts and blends, and I'm aware of some categorical differences within those areas. But "old fashioned" and "rustic" are new descriptors to me, and if I were to after reading this note try to interpolate what 'modern' would then be, I'm having to guess lots of peat would be involved. Would that then make Talisker, say, a 'modern' scotch?

Not necessarily peat, Jenise. You'd also have to consider barrel program. How they source their malt. Water. Things like that.

When I said "old style" or "old fashioned" I meant more in the sense of a small distillery tucked up in the Highlands (or, yes, off on one of the island groups) that had developed their style or taste profile pretty much independently of others.

Nowadays, of course, even with the proliferation of distilleries in Scotland, the big boys pretty much dominate the field. Many of them have become homogenized---or corporationally narrow, let's say---in promoting a particular type of scotch. Then they try to mediate and diversify by coming out with different offerings and special releases to differentiate themselves from the herd.

So now you have more variation possible, but overall less variation in what people think scotch is.

Also, when I said "old fashioned" in reference to Garioch, what I meant was using malted barley, distinct local water source, local peat (with more of an emphasis on heather/herbal, and a restrained style of smoking which doesn't obliterate the natural barley flavor by adding to much smoke---there's a range, from the tang of sweet woodsmoke on the air to rancid ashes and soot), then maturing in used American oak whiskey barrels---not oloroso or PX or port any such exotica,which is simply a way of adding external flavors to the profile of the scotch) So more emphasis on the malted barley and, actually, less on added barrel flavors while still allowing long maturation. Does that make sense.

The "new fashioned" scotch, would be once many (most) distilleries began to concentrate on the Spey (Speyside), with less variation of water source (and water source makes a big difference in profile), more common and shared practices, and even more 'shared' scotches as distilleries trade a lot and put barrels on the open market as well. And that's when the exotic barrel treatments started coming out, and the style as designated by blend.

(I know it says "single malt scotch"----but it doesn't usually say "single barrel scotch", so that means even a single malt is going to be a blended batch from lots of different barrels, with the specification that a single malt has to be from a single distillery, all malt, pot still.)

When the distilleries started coming out with the exotic wood treatment, then went even further with purpose multiple-wood maturation (Auchentoshan Three Wood---American bourbon, oloroso and PX sherry barrels in proportion) that was a way for them to manipulate and complexify their profiles, by placing more emphasis on the wood variations than the whiskey itself.) that's when even more styles started coming out. Again, not so much the whisky as the maturation vessel effect

Garioch has changed hands so many times over the years that it's difficult to keep up. But through all of that they stayed pretty consistent (old style). Then, in the 1990s they shut down the distillery for a couple of years. Up until 1995, Garioch was always fairly lightly peated and herbal; then in 1997, when the distillery reopened----they didn't use peat any longer. So this Garioch I commented on was in the "old fashioned" style.