The information and quotes for this blog post originally appeared in a Dutch article by Bert Rutkowski for Whisky Etc. His article was published in early 2014, mine followed shortly thereafter in February 11th 2014. The final update to this article is from October 14th 2021.
Let’s just dive in immediately, shall we? There’s a causality between the mothballing of GlenDronach and the true age of their age statement whiskies. The distillery was closed from 1996 until 2001, and that gap of six years forces GlenDronach to use older whisky than necessary. Take a long hard look at the infographic below and see for yourself.
The 12-year-old Original was released in 2009, so should’ve been at least partly distilled in 1997. Except even the first batch of the Original was already actually at least 13 or 14 years old. If you bought a 12-year-old in 2013, you actually were awarded an 18-year-old whisky. The same also goes for the 15-year-old Revival, 18-year-old Allardice and 21-year-old Parliament. At certain peak moments GlenDronach is six years older than stated on the label.
Too good to be true?
All of the above almost sounds to good to be true, but it is. Firstly because numbers don’t lie, and secondly because it was confirmed to Bert Rutkowski during a visit to the distillery in the summer of 2013.
During a time where No Age Statement-whiskies were the trend because of dwindling stock, why did Glendronach owner Billy Walker chose to have a core range of almost exclusively age statement whiskies? Apparently because he wanted to revive the age statements used by Teacher’s since the 1960’s until the sale to Pernod-Ricard in 2005. This was confirmed by Stewart Buchanan, International Brand Ambassador. He explains:
“Billy even wanted to add new expressions, which we did. I expect that the new generation of whiskies will be mostly NAS with fancy names, but we hope to be able to sustain a core range of top quality whiskies with age statements. Especially because we feel like that’s the way we can keep up the delicate and unique character of our distillery, whereas with NAS-whiskies the influence of the casks will weaken that character.”
Keeping the philosophy alive
So, did GlenDronach have enough stock to keep releasing older whisky? They certainly were planning to back in 2014. When Billy Walker bought GlenDronach in 2008, he also acquired 35.000 casks. Buchanan: “And he put a lot of effort into buying back casks from Beam, Pernod-Ricard and others that were going to be used for blending. Our prediction is that we can maintain our core range with our current supply. But we do need to be very careful with our sales every year to be able to do so until 2023. In the current whisky climate it is harder to mature whisky than to actually sell it.”
Those words by Buchanan turned out to be pretty prophetic. Indeed, GlenDronach has become so popular that despite their best intentions, the distillery has had a very difficult time keeping up with demand. Even so much so that they had to discontinue the GlenDronach 15-years-old Revival in 2015, less than 18 months after the original publication date of this article.
While that turned out by far to be the most drastic move by GlenDronach, it wasn’t the only time the distillery has had stock issues. At different times over the past years, the 18-year-old Allardice and 21-year-old Parliament were very difficult to get. For example, the last known batch of Parliament known on Whiskybase is from June 2020.
As a result retail prices have risen, sometimes quite dramatically. That’s partly due to pricing policy by the distillery, but also because retail outlets realised they could ask higher prices for GlenDronach that was bottled in certain years — a regretful side-effect of this article.
Current State of GlenDronach
Lots has changed since those comments by Buchanan in 2014. Most importantly: Billy Walker no longer owns GlenDronach. In 2016 the distillery (as well as sister distilleries BenRiach and Glenglassaugh) was acquired by Brown-Forman for the massive sum of $ 416 million USD. Currently in charge of the GlenDronach whiskies is another industry legend: Dr Rachel Barrie. But the new regime hasn’t been great for the reputation of the distillery.
When the GlenDronach 15-year-old Revival finally returned in 2018 it was welcomed back by fans with open arms. Reviews were generally positive, but the whisky didn’t seem to have that same magic as it did before it was discontinued. Made up entirely out of single malt produced after GlenDronach reopened again in 2002, its flavour profile was noticeably different. That alone shouldn’t have to be a problem, but coupled with the higher retail price, it just doesn’t represent the same value for money it once did.
Then in early 2020 there was a lot of controversy because the distillery removed the mention of ‘non-chill filtered’ from their packaging. The distillery released a statement that didn’t instill much confidence. “We have removed non-chill filtered from our packaging to provide the flexibility in our processes to optimise consistently exceptional quality, flavour, clarity and stability.”
To conclude the original article, I wrote “Let’s just hope that in a couple of years, when they can finally release whiskies with accurate age statements, they are able to produce the same top quality as they do now.” That hope doesn’t seem to have come to fruition. Sure, some of the single cask releases are still top notch, but also priced pretty much out of everybody’s range. As far as the more affordable releases go: the latest Glendronach Cask Strength Batch #9 was underwhelming.
This article remains current and useful for when you’re in a whisky shop and there are some dusty bottles of GlenDronach on the shelve still. However, the glory days of GlenDronach are certainly behind us. Instead, many (former) fans of GlenDronach have turned their attention to other distilleries, like GlenAllachie. The current owner and Master Blender of that distillery? Billy Walker.
very interesting article! your very last statement is the key-question, because with next releases we’ll really be able to judge how they’ve been working in the last years…
We can judge the 8yo Octarine, which is made entirely of whisky from after the re-opening. And that is a pretty good one, especially for it’s age.
yes, obviously.
As stated elsewhere, ths table and its accompanying calculations are inaccurate. Fact is that GlenDronach was mothballed in 1996 and reopened in May 2002, but it would be nice if the calculations had been properly verified.
A 15 Revival bottled in April 2013 can be guaranteed to be made with whisky distilled no later than 1996, making it a guaranteed 16 year old, not 18. If the distillery was mothballed before April 1996 (and I can’t find any information about the exact date) then it would still only be a guaranteed 17 years old, not 18.
The same error is made with the other calculations.
isn’t that the same with all whisky?
you can only show the youngest whisky on the label so some whiskies can be called 12 yo and contain 40 year old…
not sure what u mean. what is the % of 18 yo whisky in the 12 yo for example?
Gal, right now the 12 and 15 have to be made entirely with whisky from 1996 or before, since there is no GlenDronach distilled between somewhere in 1996 and May 14th 2002 and the whisky distilled in the new era hasn’t yet reached 12 years of age, let alone 15.
Therefore, 100% of the whisky used for both the 12yo and 15yo was distilled in 1996 or before, making early 2014 bottlings 100% 17yo and older. They chose to not label it as such, but they could by now label both as at least a 17 (2014-1997).
I have thought of the same topic the other day: The actual age in the bottle may be even older as the conclusion in the article. As the graph shows this age calculation is only valid (exept the true comments already given) if all the whisky in the “stretched” years comes from 1995, which I would doubt. That would put too much pressure on the year 1995 and stock as mentioned in the article would not be sufficient to fully cover the “closing period problem”. As mentioned the new owners have aquired a lot of stock from multiple years. I would therefore think that they fill recent bottlings of e.g. 15 Revival not only with 1995 barrels but mix even older to balance out the existing stock levels.
By the way, what I have forgotten to mention and has to be considered for the upcoming whiskys that are distilled after the closing block: From 2005 to 2008 the whisky has been barreled in ex bourbon casks without exeption under der Pernod regime! So even if the whisky will reach its “real” bottling age after the reopening – for example the 15 year old in 2017 – it will not be a purely sherry cask matured! The character will therefore differ from those today. In addition the heating was changed from direct coal to indirect steam heating, which has an effect on the character as well. Not worse – but different.
The only problem with the chart is that it is off by a year (should be one less).
for example, Glendronach 12 year – If it was made in April 15 of 1996 (right before closing), would be 13 year old on April 16, 2009.
I think if the bottling date says 2013 on it you will be getting older whiskey than is listed as the age statement.
So the question that needs to be answered is how can you tell what year a particular Glendronach was bottled? Where is the bottling date stated because I cannot find anything. Please and thanks.
Hi Brent, if you take a closer look at the photo’s in the article, you’ll see that one of them is of a date stamp. This date stamp appears on all bottles of Glendronach and will tell you when it was bottled.
D’oh!
Thanks for the information. I was busily looking at the front and back labels and the tube, never at the bottle itself (or the picture in the article, duh).
cheers
So in theory for the 12 year old, anything bottled prior to May 2014 would have to be from the pre-moth balled stock, right? Is the date code on the bottle definitely the date the whisky went in to glass? (as opposed to the date the glass bottle itself was made, or something).
I have bottles from a Feb 18, 2014 bottling, which I believe would force it to be older stock.
I see you already got your answer on Reddit 😉
Interesting article, thanks for sharing. As pointed out in the comments above, a one-year correction is required for the chart. But the underlying analysis illustrates a key feature of whisky production – and the commonly misleading nature of age statements on single malts (i.e., they are only a minimum, representing the youngest whisky in the vatting). Good to see someone point it out in a clear, explicit example.
I don’t think the distillery would chance a change in the Revival as it became an instant hit. My hunch is that regardless of bottling years, the planners used the same casks and calculations to ensure the latest bottlings eere commensurate with the first bottlings. It surely was known when the distellery was reopened that the masters knew how many bottlings they could acheive over the years. The reason the Revival is no longer being bottled is proof positive they were using the same stock from the start and simply cannot replicate the current bottling for lack of the original casks. The chart is pure speculation. Taste a bottle of each year and you have the same product. Of all the bottlings, the Revival is the least likely to have been molested and most likely served to carry the torch as long as original stocks could sustain. Thank you Glendronach! What a great run!
Glendronach also wouldn’t have bottled the Platinum as in my bottle 2014 with 16years, when it would be older. Wouldn’t make sense.
I share the intension of Engine66.
Nevertheless Glendronach produces really good whiskys.
interesting article. Regardless of the age statement, GlenDronach is a really great whisky.
Jeannette
Thanks to this article, i was able to look for and find a few gems … earlier this month, i found 2 bottles of 12 year olds in a local store that were bottled February 2014 (at $63/each), and another store found a 15 year old lost in thier inventory, bottled February 2015 (for $93) … looking forward to getting some 21 year old in a couple years that would actually be a minimum of 24-25 years 😉
That’s a great score 🙂
I bought 3 of 2015 bottles, and 1 most recent 2017 bottled one, the observation I got is that all 3 of 2015 bottles has darker juice than the most recent 2017 bottled.
What happened with the 21 year old . colour of new bottlings is pale in comparison to old !
Thanks for this informative post. I love the Glendronach 12yo and after getting married this year I wanted to treat myself to a nice bottle so I’ve ordered an 18yo Allardice bottled in 2019 – minimum 24 year juice based on your article.
I’ll save it for a while but look forward to opening it on a future anniversary to celebrate what will hopefully be several decades “sherry-casked” with my wife!!
Nice article explaining the secret of the GlenDronach Distillery.
It is now almost impossible to get the 18y Allardice and the 21y Parliament at reasonable prices. For me it looks like the old stocks are slowly being used up. Many shops also no longer receive any new deliveries. Does anyone know more?
Fortunately, I stocked up enough on time. I hope, as already mentioned in the article, that the new bottlings will continue with the same quality in 2023 and that these 2 bottlings will not get worse or disappear from the core range. Think of the new 15y Revival or the Cask Strength Batches 7-9. Unfortunately not as good as the old ones anymore.
Last Parliament 21 I’ve seen was in New Bern, NC Bottled June 2020. Unlikley any unsold 12 year and possibly 18 year from 2006 and earlier are still on the shelves.
Now the question is, what is the cutoff date on a bottle for the 2019, for the end of the older 18s? Cannot imagine just because the year shows say 2020, the bottle is back to 18yrs of age. There must be some reference to the end of the older casks.