15yo Official & 12yo Independent | 53.7% & 58.4% ABV

Score: 7/10

**Very Good Indeed.**
***TL;DR***
*It’s big, bold and beautifully dark red. Classic Geery though?*

Close But No Cigar

Whisky, as we all know and understand, is subjective. As someone who spends their time waxing lyrical about what I’m finding in any given whisky, it’s important for me to approach the final bit - the serious question of if it’s any good or not - with the gravity of influence at the very core.

I don’t mean the vapid pouting freeloaders waving their phones around in places of spiritual importance to generate likes on Instahoot so that they can continue their pointless existence with another free hotel stay in Marrakech.

I mean the people who read our words and think, yeah, I fancy a bit of that action. In recent weeks I’ve seen a number of people mention me in their comments to say that I’d influenced their purchase of a whisky. That makes me nervous.

I started writing this review a few weeks ago when I was in a horribly negative headspace, a place I seldom visit. But, because it’s rare to find myself there, it felt doubly rubbish when I started thinking about the whisky in my glass.

Just as I was emerging from a dense smoky blanket of melancholy, a really difficult situation at work reared its ugly head. All energy was diverted to that cause and all whisky was relegated to being a companion to misery. But I kept writing, because writing is my way of processing life.

Reviewing what I’d put down on page, it was a very negative piece. The situation had compounded my feelings towards a bottle of whisky I’d bought a while back, one that, upon opening, found it really challenging. Curse my luck. After the Tomatin affair and feeling hard done by paying £75 for inert whisky, to have the very next purchase be a bottle of whisky that was sharper than a spritz of lemon to the eyeball, and for the Crystal threshold bumping £96? The fingers were red hot with rage.

To look at that bottle, so beautifully presented in the Berry Bros & Rudd packaging and glowing with toffee amber promise, knowing it could have, should have, been a belter, filled me with sadness. It’s a sour cherry on top of a polished turd. Glen Garioch shouldn’t be this way. It should be bready, buttery and rich, and spicy and purple. Not toxic green. Stuff the whole bleedin’ lot of it.

Many weeks later, having peeled myself from the bedrock beneath the barrel and, dare I say it, hope appearing on the horizon, I opened a bottle of Glen Garioch 15yo Sherry Cask Matured whisky given to me, in another case of unreasonable generosity, by oor commander in chief. He didn’t know it, but that bottle and what it represents - friendship, comfort and joy - was a gift incredibly well timed. Sometimes life gives us lemons. Other times rich dark fruits.

The nervousness I have of people reading my waffling words and making a financial decision off the back of it, is because I care about what I write and what I represent; someone finding their way through the whisky world. I’m no Charlie Maclean or Dave Broom, and I never will be. But I still want to give those who read Dramface a responsible, balanced, measured, serious indication of whether or not a whisky has resonated for me, free of personal afflictions colouring my thoughts.

You might have noticed it being quiet on the Auld Doog front these past few weeks, and that’s because I wanted to appraise these whiskies from a position of calm. Of being settled mentally and spiritually. I’ve reset the switchboard and the ship is reasonably steady, so to whisky I turn, for the joy in life that offsets the turbulence.

Review 1/2

Glen Garioch 2011, 12yo, Berry Brothers & Rudd, Oloroso finish, 433 bottle outturn, 58.4% ABV
£96 - Still Available

On day one of opening the Glen Garioch 12yo and realising it was a shocker, I took steps to try and mitigate the overpowering sourness and sulphuric awkwardness, by leaving the stopper off the bottle for a whole waking day. Then another half day after that and, by round three of airing it out, the garden centre funk had dissipated enough to start recognising the Geery character beneath.

I’m really fortunate that I have a few Glen Garioch bottlings kicking about to compare this strange tale of whisky gone amiss against - the Adelphi 11yo of golden wonder being the pinnacle of reference. I’ve also had a healthy sample of a Murray McDavid Glen Garioch 11yo finished in Tokaji casks, which I mentioned briefly in the Tomatin Amarone review. I have a bottle of the core range 12yo and my many notes from all the other Geery joys I’ve tried. And, of course, most recently the 15yo Sherry monster.

I hope that this 12yo will come back to something passable, if only to save me from diving head first down the miserable hole of £100 burned in vain. Coming back to the Berry Bros Geery after a few more weeks I’m astounded to find that the off-notes are disappearing. There’s still a hint of the sharper, tart fruity, fousty notes but it forms a more balanced element amongst the more typical Geery characteristics. How will this 15yo compare, a whisky that has brought many praises and reverences from the posts I’ve placed on Instahoot; it seems this is a fan favourite. Off we go.

Score: 6/10

**Good Stuff.**
***TL;DR***
*Doesn’t quite meet the strict Crystal regulations around Geery. Expensive.*

Nose

Engine oil and epoxy resin. Sulphur - downwind explosive. Sparks. Stale espresso. Garden Centre. Pretzel sticks. Reminds me of the corked Bunna 12! Big toasted woods.

Water: the sulphur seems to dissipate leaving biscuitty Geery. A redness. Empty plastic water tub.

A day with the top off. It's coming alive. Meaty. Sulphur is reduced. Sherry influence more present. Turmeric. Reminds me of Benromach. Springbank. Dirty. Coriander. Salty. Buttery toffee popcorn. Toasted cedar.

Two full days of taps aff and two weeks further in, this has transformed. It’s bready (hooray!) and buttery (hooray!) and all the other things Geery is great for. But that meaty, dirty phase has moved to a peripheral spritz of burnt sienna.

Palate

Wood. Sulphur. Rape seed oil. Corked Bunna 12.

Water: Rape seed becomes more prominent. Wow - coffee and walnut cake!

After open all day. Butter. Burnt.

Two days open and two weeks in, the flavours I associate with Geery are arriving, in strength. All the sweeties - honey, toffee, a bit of Milka chocolate. It’s flowing a lot easier and feels looser - the red fruits are here but pushed out wide, allowing the silkier woods and caramels to float in the middle, buttery, purple bready magic. The tart, sulphur thing is still there, but very small and maybe quite complimentary.

Score: 6/10

Review 2/2

Glen Garioch 15yo, Sherry Cask Matured, Official Bottling, 53.7% ABV
£115 - A rare find but still available here and there

For context - a note form Wally on this one:
In 2019 a dear friend travelled from Germany to Glasgow and offered me the choice of this Glen Garioch or this Caol Ila as a gift. I chose the Caol Ila. The Garioch was then handed to another pal who’d travelled from the US. Not able to pack another bottle in to his stuffed suitcase, he handed it to me and suggested I take both. I did so, on the condition I sought a worthy recipient. In recent months Dougie has become something of a Glen Garioch fanboy and thus the deserving recipient was obvious. It took five years, but whisky’s in no hurry.

Score: 7/10

**Very Good Indeed.**
***TL;DR***
*Expensive. But offers a lot of interest and engaging flavour.*

Nose

Coconut, reds, tans. Bread & butter pud. Chilli from the freezer - meaty, peppery, thick. Snuffed waxy candle. Parma violets, blueberries, brioche. Blueberry iced muffin, playdoh, cinnamon swirl bun! Gorse. Apple juice. Heather. Traffic light air freshener!?

Palate

Initially big sherry bruiser. A week later the Geery appears. Sweet raisins, treacle sponge dripping with dark caramel sauce. Edinburgh rock. Cola cubes. There’s hints of the bready, waxy Geery in here but it’s a firm second to the big dark red fruit fest.

Finish - mouth wateringly long.cola cubes again.

Score: 7/10

The Dregs

I’ll tackle the 15yo Official Bottling first. The neck pour was immediately interesting - christmas pudding and rich dried fruits. The Geery bready character is there, but way, way back, lurking in the diorama of dark reds and purples. It’s a sherry monster. Aberlour A’Bunadh almost. Luckily the Geery spirit has enough kick below the surface to keep it from becoming something like the Glenrothes 11yo from AWWC, where it was wall to wall dark red. Some nice yellow Geery breadiness appears but it doesn’t manage to get through enough to make it out-and-out incredible, like the Adelphi 11yo golden egg.

Many people regard the 15yo as a bona fide giant in the Geery stable, and I can’t argue that it’s a delicious whisky, but blowing me away? Not yet. A side-by-side with that Adelphi 11yo bottling confirms that the 15yo isn’t quite aligned enough to the Geery character that I swoon over for it to have me reaching for it to discover more.

The price is big over here in the UK, where it’s made - £115 if you can find it in stock. In Denmark of all places, it’s €59. Irritating, but there we go; the Scots don’t exactly get the best prices for Scotch, even if they do make the stuff. Despite all this it’s still very good indeed. The bottle is now down to half - I’ve sampled some out but will now stick it somewhere cool and dark, coming back to it nearer the turn of the year to see if anything’s happening.

Onto the BB&R and even after a few months of being open the whisky still exhibits that sharp/sour edge. I thought it would continue to die off but a final wee nip last night to check everything was how I remember, and it feels like that tartness has risen in presence again. But then so has the bread and butter pudding of Geery magic, becoming a potent mixing pot of identifiable Geery interest but with a rougher, sharper note weaving its weirdness throughout the happy place.

I was hoping this would be a tale of a whisky that went from abject ugly duckling into a beautiful swan, but it stopped agonisingly short. For the price I paid this is not on, and even though I've had a bit of fun investigating it all and seeing if I could sway it to something special, it turned out to be a task too great for my fiddling. Like a noble giant said on a recent Dramface podcast, why would you take great bourbon matured whisky and ruin it in a weird sulphur cask?

Am I disappointed? You know, I’m a wee bit upset that this wasn’t supreme Geery right out the gate. I’m pleased it’s managed to get to a place where I’m able to drink it over an evening and not be reeling the whole time, but for almost £100, it really needs to be a lot better than this. The 11yo Adelphi was £65 and is astonishing. A shame really, but the price again prohibits a higher score. Good stuff, but not great.

I think if I’d scored these two a few weeks ago they would have been lower, but with the benefit of time and space I see that yes, they both have virtues, but in the grand scheme of whiskies that have, are and possibly will set me alight, these two are not quite in that pantheon of greats.

Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. DC

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