Glenfiddich 14 Year Old Rich Oak
Rich oak indeed
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Review by @Megawatt
- Nose22
- Taste21
- Finish21
- Balance22
- Overall86
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Distribution of ratings for this:
- Brand: Glenfiddich
- Type: Scotch
- Region: Speyside
- ABV: 40%
Nose: Good grief, this is like sticking your head into a whisky-soaked barrel. The signature fruitiness of Glenfiddich is fairly buried under damp and fresh wood aromas, but it does emerge in time alongside even more fragrant wood. Overall, quite mellow and rounded.
Flavour: mellow and smooth with some sweetness at first before becoming dry and slightly spicy at the back of the mouth. For all that oak it still seems a tad thin, but nonetheless lively and satisfying. The wood aromas certainly translate on the palate and are the predominant flavour throughout, dancing around your mouth with each sip.
Finish: gentle oak spice leads the way.
Balance: I daresay the distillers achieved their goal here. This malt has a strong signature which sets it apart from almost everything else I've tasted. I'm sure many connoisseurs will pass this off as "just another Glen" but in my view this is a unique offering.
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Nice review, It's good to see a different take on this whisky, I think beside JW Black and Aberlour 10, this is probably the Scotch whisky I have consumed the most, It's my brother's daily dram (not his favorite 'Fiddich but one of them) and he goes through a questionable amount of this stuff and I do as well to a certain extent.
I always thought it was a neat trick to finish partly in Virgin European oak, seeing as the industry as a whole has largely moved to doing this only with Virgin or first fill Amerian oak.
The impact is quite noticeable, tons of spices, ginger, that dark almost forest floor feeling that only Euro oak provides. .
That said, it's not without it's downs it manages to be both thin and intense at the same time, that is the body and texture is thin due to the abv but simultaneously hitting Glenfiddich spirit with that much new wood causes it to be a bit too intense and buries any possible nuances.