The oldest currently available Glengoyne is the 30 year old. In my last review on the 25 year old I mentioned this new one is silly expensive. At £700 a bottle I am never going to recommend someone buys and opens this without knowing what they are getting in to.

At a recent event there was no shortage of people queuing up to buy a bottle so the market is clearly there for those who like Glengoyne. My only worry is a lot of those people were buying to speculate on future value. For those people I am sorry to say they *probably* won’t see any massive return on that investment and certainly not enough to cover the credit card interest. I hope for their sake I am wrong but that is how I see it unfortunately.

The Dram

The 30 year old is matured exclusively in ex sherry casks. For this release of 5200 bottled 13 casks were used all of which were left in the same cask from original filling to bottling. The bottling strength is cask strength at 46.8% ABV and each bottle complete in wooden box costs a cool £700. Just take a moment and let that sink in.

Of course, I am egging this slightly since if Edrington was selling it you can easily assume a zero would be added and some fancy bottle design to add “premiumisation”. Regardless, its a lot of money for 700ml of liquid.

Tasting Notes

Colour – dark mahogany wood

Nose – rich thick plump raisins soaked in brandy at Christmas time. Lots of Christmas cak notes actually and a strong dark leather note from a smoking room.

Palate – The palate texture is thick and waxy and really coats lots of dried fruit notes. There is a note of charred wood and caramelised tart fruits. That is something of a new note in Glengoyne’s which I haven’t picked in any bottle from the 10 to the 25 year old.

Finish – The finish is of course very long but also intensely drying full of cinnamon, wood tannins and sweet sap.

Final Thoughts

There is a lot to be said for this dram. As a whisky it is really excellent and a great celebration of well aged whisky being done right. The technical ability of the blenders who put this together are to be congratulated for their skill. At that price though I just can’t justify buying an entire bottle.