...where distraction is the main attraction.

Friday, February 22, 2019

Glenfiddich 8 year old Pure Malt, bottled 1979


I end this Glenfiddich voyage forty years ago. Alas, we finally have a bottle date on the bottom.


Glenfiddich Pure Malt had an 8 year age statement from near the brand's birth until the end of the 1970s. After that it went NAS for nearly two decades of darkness, aside from a short stint as a 10-year-old in Japan.

I obtained this mini as some point within the past two years, but I don't know how or when. But as you can see from that top photo, the fill level is money. I'm fairly excited about this.


Distillery: Glenfiddich
Owner: William Grant & Sons
Region: Speyside (Dufftown)
Age: at least 8 years old
Maturation: ???
Bottle Date: 79
Alcohol by Volume: 43%

Dunnage, malt, limes, peaches, smoked almonds, salty pork, sesame oil and a hint of butterscotch on the nose. The palate is different. Burlap, soap, greasy rags, chalk dust, limes, vanilla simple syrup and a lot of metal. There's some dingy smoke in there, among the acids and peppercorns. It gets violently, chemically sweet by the 20 minute mark. Soap, burlap and metal in the finish. Again, it gets so cloying so quickly.

What a nose. What a palate. What a mess. It's not often I find a Grade A scent attached to a Grade D- taste. When I first smelled the whisky, I thought, "My god, there's going to be a 90-point Glenfiddich on Diving for Pearls!" I was mistaken.

Unlike Wednesday's whisky, it didn't take time for the soap to take over. It was there from the start. So was a literally bloody amount of metal. It was a matter of *sniff* "Awesome" *sip* "Awful", *sniff* "Awesome" *sip* "Awful", and so on until I dumped a quarter of it down the sink. And that is how Glenfiddich Month ended.

Availability - one can find these minis at auctions
Pricing - ???
Rating - 72 (once again, the nose is all that keeps it out of the 60s)