Glen Albyn 1963/1984 by Gordon & MacPhail
It’s not everyday that you get to taste a whisky of a closed distillery that was bottled in the eighties. One that has aged for 21 years even. But Yapi’s High End Blind Tasting hasn’t been an everyday tasting, so it should hardly be a surprise that he included a Glen Albyn 21yo from 1963, bottled by Gordon & MacPhail.
Glen Albyn 1963/1984 (40%, Gordon & MacPhail)
Nose: Apple, orange, banana, grapefruit, figs and plums. Lovely fruity so far. Also a tiny bit spicy. I do believe there’s some old bottle effect. I smell soy sauce and it is a bit of a musty nose.
Taste: Zesty, some menthol and cardboard. Very different after that great fruity nose. Those fruity aromas don’t really translate into fruity flavours. The fruitiness (plums, banana, white grapes) disappears into the background.
Finish: The finish is an afterthought really. Disappointingly short, but oddly warming for a whisky with such a low alcohol pecentage.
Rating: 86
A fantastic nose, but what follows is comparatively disappointing. Without those lovely fruity aromas, this would’ve scored more like 82 or 83 points. Nonetheless, it was very cool to be able to taste a bottling as old as this one.
Thijs is a spirits writer and accredited liquorist from The Netherlands. He runs the blog Words of Whisky and contributes to a number of Dutch and international publications.
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