Glendronach, where to start?

The regular 15yo and 18yo are a good starting point to discover the house style. Of course the real gems are among the single casks, but you'll need a higher budget to try them a.

... higher budget to try them and most of them are sold out anyway.

Yes, the Single Cask bottlings of Glendronach are absolutely stunning.

I have been drunk 15yo, cs, 94 #80, 92 #138. There are huge differences between them. The 15yo is most smooth. The cs has a strong rich odors with milk and chocolate. 92 is more spicy than 94, and them all have prunes and raisins flavors. In my personaly, I like 15yo best.

The 8 year old Octarine is brilliant. It's been discontinued, but depending on luck and location, you can still find it in some stores at a very reasonable price.

Try to find an older Revival 15. They are getting worse these days, still good but not as good as they used to be. The older ones from a few years back rule.

The 12 yr Original bottled at 46% is a good start, and for $50 to $60 it's 'reasonably' priced.

Reminds me alot of the Aberlour 12 yr Non-Chill Filter.

@FMichael Concur. I am a big fan of the 12YO. I can generally find it for under 50.00. The 15 is also really good, but is closer to 70.00. Also, my understanding is that the distillery was not operational from 1996 – 2002, so if the whisky was bottled in 2013, for it to be at LEAST 12 years old, it would have been distilled before 1996, making it 17 years old. Food for thought. If that is incorrect, someone please correct me.

The Virgin Oak is not a typical Glendronach with the big banana flavor but it is fun because the Glendronach malt is still there in the background without the sherry notes. A fun comparaison to do is to drink it next to the Stranahan from Colorado an other virgin oak with a big banana, then you will taste the Glendronach difference.

I would say the15 is a good starting point.

Problem is - if you start with the 15yo Revival then anything else from their range will leave you feeling kind of "meh...", for lack of a better word :- )

@Jules

True. Even the Cask Strength (I've tried only once) was a bit "rough". The 15 was pretty good.

But there are so many good malts out there that you might as well start with the best of each distillery...

Unless you have a rare bottle and want to learn about the distillery profile first, I don't see a need to slog through mundane drams. I did this with Bowmore before trying Laimrig and I don't feel I benefited.

I would definitely suggest the 15YO, personally. It's my favourite single malt of all time, at the moment.

I started with their 15yo revival. Do some research and try to get some of their really good single cask bottles. The best of there single cask whiskys are amongst the best whiskys I've ever tasted.