Loods of Whisky Festival botteling 2024
A 13 year old Glenrothes in this review
I need to stop telling about how much I buy through scrolling online or on socials.
But this is, again, such a story.
While scrolling on Instagram, I noticed a post by @womenintowhisky about a festival bottling. Petra, the kind lady behind the account, organises a nice whisky festival in Groningen, in the northern part of the Netherlands, and that festival just happens to have a festival bottling.
Always looking for indie bottles, I decided to send a question to her on the chat:
" Hi, I'm not capable of joining the festival this year, but I would really like this bottling, can I order it?"
The answer came quick and I was able to order this bottle and it was shipped to me.
This festival bottling is a 13 year old Glenrothes, aged on a 2nd fill shery butt.
While the festival itself was in 2024, this dram was distilled in 2008 and bottled in 2021.
This dram has a very nice yellow color, that has a slight tinge of going to a more orange hue if you catch it in the right light. It was bottled at 50,2% Vol, no added coloring.
A dance in my glass leaves a nice oily line stciking to the side that takes quite a wwhile before dropping into thin but fatty legs.
On the nose I get dried orange peels mixed with some cloves on an oak chopping board. The oranges turn into a juicy orange slice while the cloves dissapear and a nice wave of toffee pops up and lingers a bit. In the end I catch some vanilla, but it stays in the background.
The first sip gives me a that fresh citrus again, mixed with some dried apricots and sultanas, all paired with some white pepper and a bit of heat from the alcohol.
A second sip after a drop of water leaves more sweet notes of toffee and honey, mixed with some light orange peel. The pepper and the heat remain.
After both sips, some tannins linger in the finish, wrestling the sweeter notes for some dominance. Think honeyed oak and sugared leather.
In the end, the third party wins: Sherried notes and dried plums chase away both the sweeter notes and the tannins.
