1972 Glendronach Single Cask No.712 Cask Strength 39 Year Old Single Malt Scotch Whisky (700ml)

After tasting and evaluating over 4500 whiskies worldwide for his “Whisky Bible 2012”, Jim Murray singled out Glendronach as the distillery “with the most consistently impressive output throughout 2011” and placed it “in the Grand Crus of Scottish Malt Distilleries”. He added: “If there was a Whisky Bible Scotch Malt Whisky Distillery of the Year, GlenDronach would be it.”

No doubt his praise was in part inspired by the amazing batches of Single Cask whiskies the distillery has been slowly sharing with the public. Now a miniscule selection has just arrived in Australia.

Each year Master Distiller, Billy Walker, selects a handful of single casks to be bottled at cask strength, without colour or chill filtration. These whiskies date back as far as 1968. While there is a vast selection of barrels, hogsheads, puncheons and butts to choose from, the trend has been towards impeccably clean Pedro Ximenez and Oloroso Sherry puncheons and butts, most of which share Glendronach’s typically luxurious profile. In some instances there is a fantasia of dates, orchestras of spices and explosions of honey, Demerara sugar, sweet molasses, mocha and even fruit cake.

As Murray himself has summed up, the collection is "Sulphurless, Sophisticated and Sensational". He has also pined over the sad reality that this sort of unblemished sherry purity is fast becoming a thing of the past. The latest batch is limited to between 300 and 600 bottles per expression.

Here is an opportunity to take advantage of some of the most hedonistic sherry classics ever produced. If you have enjoyed the likes of Glenfarclas, Tomintoul and old school Macallan, then these will be for you. What'smore, given the impressive quality/age ratios on most, the prices are fair. Very limited stocks of all vintages.

Cask 712 was an Oloroso Sherry butt, distilled in 1972 and bottled in 2011. Only 466 bottles were produced.

Other reviews... ...the rare beauty of an entirely faultless Sherry butt...the overall play is one of the finest veteran actors squeezing every nuance out of their lines, and taking the pathos to just bearable proportions, reminding us of what we will be missing over the years to come due to the near wiping out of Sherry butts like these.... 95.5 points 49.9% Alc./Vol.
- Jim Murrays Whisky Bible 2013size>