Glen Grant 17 Year (SMWS 9.235 "The Proof is in the Finish")

I quite like Glen Grant - always sweet and pleasing, always with a curious angle somewhere in the glass, it's never disappointed me. This 17 year sample was provided at the March 2023 Scotch Malt Whisky Society ("SMWS") outturn tasting at the Jack Rose Saloon in Washington DC. 

Here are the official notes: 

An array of associations on the nose neat with red fruits, spicy oak, oven-roasted corn on the cob drizzled in melting butter and stewed rhubarb. On the palate sticky toffee pudding with caramel sauce and ice cream, a hot buttered rum bread pudding and a hot chocolate Catalan cream. After the addition of water, we had a slice of a clootie dumpling with Drambuie custard and a lingonberry crumb pie while to taste cinnamon bark, sweet red peppers and flambeed pears with a chilli chocolate sauce. Devilishly delightful, creamy, as well as exotically tropical. Following fifteen years in an ex-bourbon hogshead, we transferred this whisky into a 1st fill Spanish oak Oloroso hogshead. 

Oven-roasted corn on the cob, eh? Hot chocolate Catalan cream?? Lingonberry crumb pie!? We'll see, I suppose. 

Spanish oak tends to make a whisky quite spicy and interesting, so two years maturation in a Spanish oak ex-Oloroso hogshead could be quite interesting. Let's find out:

Nose: Sherry all over the place - it must have been a wet Oloroso cask indeed. Cola cubes, leather, brown sugar or molasses - I tasted this blind and successfully guessed the finished on this. There is also a distinct sulfur note here, which I liked but not everyone in the room felt the same way. 

Mouthfeel: Nice, silky, medium body. 

Palate: More sherry - red fruit, nuts of all kids, yeast, oak, wood polish, brown sugar. An underlying bourbon-y solidity (spice and vanilla) gets a little bit overrun by the rampant sherry flavors. 

Finish: On the dry side, brown sugar and cigar wrapper and chocolate cream (I'll give that one to the official notes). 

Verdict: This was a divisive bottle at the tasting event. Some people adored this - others, including myself, found the sherry really transfigured the whisky in a way that erased some of its core identity, which was a shame. I enjoyed it - I'm sure it would be a great bottle - but I wish the finish was only half the length, or even less. Still - an entirely respectable Glen Grant independent offering.