Scotch Whisky Review #145: Glenfiddich Excellence 26 Year

Distillery: Glenfiddich

Region: Speyside

Price: Part of a flight

ABV: 43%

Age: 26 Year

Color: 0.7, Amber.

This is the twenty-fourth in my Countdown to Christmas series where I’ll be posting a review a day until Christmas. You can find the entire series here.

Nose: It smells like someone is baking for the holidays. There is a lot of warm baking spices up front followed by fruit tarts, both made of apple and pear, that just came out of oven. Delightful.

Palate: It starts off rather light and bright with a note much like a sparkling pear juice. After the bubbly goes, you get almost a bite of those apple and pear tarts. Some malt biscuit pops up towards the end, almost as if it were a crumbly pie crust.

Finish: Medium in length. It’s just got a singular note of pear sorbet.

Conclusion: If someone were to ask me what my ideal fruity dessert course would be, it would definitely include pears and a tart of some sort. This is nearly that in liquified form. From the get-go, you get a lovely whiff of holiday baking and warm fruit tart. The palate is lots of fun, starting off with a bubbly pear juice and ending with a crumbly pie crust. The finish is straightforward with a pear sorbet. It’s delightful and I enjoyed it quite a bit. A little more complexity in the finish would’ve been nice and would’ve really elevated this to the next level. Would I buy a bottle? It goes on the “if I win the lottery” list..

Final Score: 87.

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Scotch Whisky Review #145, Speyside Review #60, Whisky Network Review #193

Scoring Legend:

• 96-100: The perfect dram, nectar of the gods.
• 90-95: Near perfect, there is something truly special about this whisky.
• 85-89: Amazing, will always try to keep a bottle of this in my collection (if feasible).
• 80-84: Very Good, maybe only one minor nitpick about the whisky keeping it here.
• 75-79: Good, quite enjoyable to drink.
• 70-74: Solid, wouldn’t go out of my way to get it.
• 60-69: Meh, still drinkable.
• Below 59: If you have a bottle of this, start cooking with it instead.