Glenburgie 1997/2012 Chivas Brothers CS Edition

Pernord Ricard owns a lot of distilleries, but not many of them are promoted as single malt whiskies. Most are used for their blends, like Chivas. Glenburgie is one of those distilleries that mainly produces for blended whiskies, and they don’t really have a readily available official bottling.

You have to go to one of the Pernod Ricard distilleries to get yourself an official Glenburgie. At the visitor centre of (for instance) the Strathisla distillery you’ll find a bottling series called Chivas Brothers Cask Strength Edition. It consists of 50cl bottles in which their normally little exposed distilleries are highlighted. Sort of like how Diageo uses their Flora & Fauna series to highlight their lesser known distilleries. Except that the Chivas Brothers Cask Strength Editions are released in batches.

There have now been four batches of Glenburgie. Todays tasting notes are of a sample I received from Geert. I also have a bottle of a newer batch at home, but I’ll review that a later time.

Glenburgie 1997/2012 (60,5%, OB, #GB 14 005)

Nose: Fruity with lemon zest and pineapple. Also some cumin seeds, accompanied by honey. Next a more farmy aspect with hay and straw. Some wood shavings also.
Taste: Chalky, waxy and fruity (citrus). Fairly spicy, maybe even too much. Sharp and overly alcoholic. This could use some water.
Finish: Pear, pepper and it ends with some nice green fruits.

Rating: 86

The nose is fantastic. I absolutely loved it. The palate is a bit too much, very rough. But this is still a nice whisky. Approved 🙂

Picture: Whiskybase