Glenfiddich

 
 
 

Is it good?

 

Ok so I’m traveling through the Travel retail (as it’s called now) and luckily I’m traveling every few months so I get the chance to browse through the selection if my flight times are cohesive with the opening of the shops at the airport, on my last trip at the beginning of this month I had a spare ½ hour so rather than being bored watching the traffic sleeping, strolling or whizzing through the airport I thought let’s spend the time wisely and browse the shelves, looking to pick up a couple of bottles.

 

So while I’m in heaven looking at the selection up stomps …….. No not an angel. The sales staff, she swiftly prompts me to the Glenfiddich, ok before the crowds start that this is a mass produced no heart and soul Dram, I say shut up and try, the entry level 12 year old is where I started to get involved so to speak.

 

So to all the Whisky snobs who think that the +Glenfiddich Whisky or +Scotch Glenlivet are below them now that they are experienced dramers and these expressions are not for the connoisseur, well I have a few words for you and I cannot print it. The 2 brands in question and especially Glenfiddich are expressions that have so much brand awareness and helped the popularity of Scottish Whisky by presence in markets you would never have thought would have them, they have been in the gantry of 99.9% of the world’s bars and I might add without ridicule or embarrassment.

 

I am partial to a few of their wee drams and even though I try many bottling’s from various distilleries I still have a wee dram of Glenfiddich, recently trying the Glenfiddich Distillery Edition – 15 year old bottled at 51% ABV, not a bad drop which I will review latter in the Glenfiddich week.

 

I was dubious when she tried to persuade me to purchase the new range, yes no age statement, not so good however for travel retail I don’t mind, so let’s look more closely, I will say here I did not purchase them until my return trip and will review them later with a couple of pals. But back to this Glenfiddich being the latest to launch no age statements on a set of new expressions, with three new bottles hitting the market.

 

Glenfiddich new range of three whiskies is called the Glenfiddich Cask Collection. Coming soon.

They have Glenfiddich Select Cask, matured in hand-selected aged Bourbon, European oak and red wine casks, Reserve Cask, matured in distinctive Spanish sherry casks and Vintage Cask, matured in European oak and American Bourbon (a smoky, peaty version) are all married in their own Solera tuns.

 

William Grant & Sons managing director of Global Travel Retail Rita Greenwood said: “We are continuing to see global whisky demand steadily increase as both emerging and more mature markets experience growth. Combined with the customer profile of today’s discerning global traveler, this makes global travel-retail a strategically important channel for Glenfiddich. Global travelers are looking for exclusive gifts and a distinct range of products which they can’t buy domestically, making this the natural environment to launch Glenfiddich’s premium collection of rich and mellow single malts.”

They have Glenfiddich Select Cask, matured in hand-selected aged Bourbon, European oak and red wine casks, Reserve Cask, matured in distinctive Spanish sherry casks and Vintage Cask, matured in European oak and American Bourbon (a smoky, peaty version).

The Cask Collection uses the same Solera vat system that Glenfiddich pioneered for the use of their 15 year old expression.  This project has seen them build three new vats for marrying this collection, one for each expression. 

So try them out. Just to note the Vintage Cask is due for launch in 2014, so look out for it.

 

Future blogs will feature them in a tasting.