Glenrothes 8 Year (SMWS 30.121 "Worth Hunting Down")

 

I have had so little Glenrothes - in fact, my records say only one bottle, also a single cask release from the Scotch Malt Whisky Society ("SMWS"). That bottle was even younger, only 7 years old, but featured very similar casking as this one - initial sherry maturation with a finish in a STR sherry butt, so I am expecting it to be mostly the same. 

Glenrothes is a Speyside distillery owned by the Edrington Group (Macallan, Highland Park, etc.), was founded in 1879, and uncommonly features their own cooperage on-site. 

Here are the official notes:

We found ourselves transported into an Austrian tea house or, even better, into a hunting lodge with the smell of taxidermy mounts hanging on the wall mixed with chocolatey and luscious apricot jam aromas from a Viennese Sacher Torte. Wow, on the palate we had a steaming hot mug of Jagertee (hunter’s tea) made with very high alcohol 80% Austrian "Inländer-Rum" and spice black tea. Following reduction, we sat on a wooden tree stand peering through binoculars, but now with a hot chocolate in our hipflask to keep us warm until we heard the special horn signal ‘Halali’! After five years in an ex-Oloroso butt, we transferred this whisky into a toasted refill butt.

Intriguing - five years ex-Oloroso, three years in a toasted butt. Of those notes, I am surprised by all the mentions of tea, and I am really hoping to encounter the apricot jam. Bottled at a very stout 67.4% ABV (!!), let's explore this young sherry bomb:

Nose: Strangely, this comes across initially as both sweet AND dry. There is a distinct tea note that runs front to back - tea sweetened with honey and cloves, maybe. There is also a lot of dry, dusty chocolate on the nose. And Black Forest cake (chocolate and sour cherry). Spices galore, including sea salt. Orange oil and leather. It really shows the dry-yet-heavy character of Oloroso. 

With a couple splashes of water: it gets a little sweeter - more honey, some vanilla - but essentially the same. Still lots of tea. 

Mouthfeel: Really nice! Silky, oily, very full. 

Palate: Well, tons of alcohol, as you'd expect at 67.4%. Huge sweeping wave of alcohol that leaves behind a lovely rich taste of orange, black cherry, leather, wood, chocolate, tea, and dried fruit like prunes. Quite nice. Hints of ash and smoke at the end, into the finish. 

With a couple splashes of water: Ahh... much tamer. More spirit character - malt, chocolate, spice, orange - along with the sherry influences and tea notes.

Finish: Ashy, woody, with lingering cherry and leather. Oddly reminds me of smelling a freshly extinguished pipe. 

Verdict: Lovely dram, surprised me at every step of the way. I'm always so suspicious of young single cask whiskies - so many of them are "interesting" without being satisfying. I've recently had great luck with some sherry-matured young'uns - one from Craigellachie, and this one. A really surprising combination of tea, sherry, chocolate, spices, and malt, this has a lot to offer considering its young age. A brash little sherry bomb for sure, and a win for Glenrothes/Edrington. They really have their sherry cask game on point.