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Glenfiddich makes some damn fine Scotch.
by jagger27 5y ago
Glenfiddich makes some damn fine Scotch.
- orf 5y agoHonestly, not really. A lot of the blended export stuff isn't great. Some of the older single malts are good (but then again which aren't?), but there are much better ones out there. It's just got a good recognizable name that is easily marketable to consumers in the US and Europe as a "good" Whisky. Edit: So it's not bad, it's just super mass-produced. You find it in every single place that sells Whisky (corner-stores, supermarkets, petrol stations, etc etc) alongside Famous Grouse, Bells and the like. They make it for a particular audience is all I'm saying, and IDK if I'd define it as "fine".
- lostlogin 5y agoWhat do you rate?
- orf 5y agoAnything from Islay is my jam, with Laphroaig having a particular place in my heart.
- ericmay 5y agoSame here. Laphroiag, Caol Ila, Bunna, and though not Islay, Talisker has a special place in my heart
- nyx-aiur 5y agoThat's the I don't know anything about whisky but I read on pretentious blogs that these are good list.
- ericmay 5y agoThose are the ones I’ve enjoyed (I’ve been to Scotland. Also don’t care about what others - blogs- opinions are on things). Sure I don’t know anything. Any recommendations? Why does liking those mean I don’t know anything about whiskey?
- jahewson 5y agoIf you’re after Speyside then Balvenie and Glenrothes make some good bottles. Overall it’s probably the least interesting variety of Scotch but it’s light and drinkable.
- jdsully 5y agoI don’t understand the infatuation with single malts. The distiller has a lot more control when making a blend and assuming equal skill and care can make a better product
- FridayoLeary 5y agoI'm also not sure why almost every whisky out there seems to be watered down to 40%.
- bboreham 5y agoBound to be for tax reasons. However, if you haven’t read this story it’s quite interesting. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2144353-why-adding-a-drop-of-water-can-make-whisky-taste-even-better/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2144353-why-adding-a-dr...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- chrisseaton 5y agoDoesn't it get pretty hard to actually drink it above 40%?
- te_chris 5y agoNot at all. Acquired taste perhaps, but high-strength, well-made spirits can be wonderful. Need to treat them with respect though, as the downsides are obvious. Loads of the over-proof whiskys and rums are glorious.
- smcl 5y agoThe strongest you'll likely see is 60% (I have a Glenfarclas 105 at that ABV) but you are right it gets a little challenging at a higher ABV. However between 43-46% is a little richer in flavour without being too nippy even for beginners.
- FridayoLeary 5y ago
- randallsquared 5y ago"blended export stuff"? Does Glenfiddich even have a blended expression? (Does the Solera vat count as a blending method for your statement?)
- orf 5y agoI've not seen one locally, but I've definitely seen them in the USA and in a couple of airport duty free sections. Unless I'm going crazy
- detaro 5y agoGlenfiddich is used in Monkey Shoulder, but other than that?
- orf 5y agoWell this is weird. I have this distinct memory of seeing a blended bottle in NYC from them, and concluding that it’s some export version that they don’t sell to the domestic market because it’s not very good. This was quite a few years ago though, so it must be a false memory or another brand entirely. And I can’t find anything on Google…
- Gibbon1 5y agoI bought a bottle of some random scotch whiskey. I t was young and raw but not actually bad. I did a bit of research and it's common for distilleries to sell excess under a popup brand label or sell it for blending.
- twic 5y ago"Blended" means a whisky combines both malt and grain spirit. Glenfiddich make malt spirit, but not grain spirit [1], so there's no way a "blended Glenfiddich" could exist. There could be blended whiskies containing Glenfiddich and grain spirit from another distillery, but those are just blended whiskies like any other; you couldn't consider them to be Glenfiddich. "Blended malt" means a whisky combines malt spirit from multiple distilleries, so "blended malt Glenfiddich" would be an oxymoron. A Solera system doesn't count as any kind of blending, as long as all the inputs are malt whisky from a single distillery. [1] these are the grain distilleries: https://www.whiskyinvestdirect.com/about-whisky/grain-whisky-distilleries-in-scotland https://www.whiskyinvestdirect.com/about-whisky/grain-whisky...
- jagger27 5y agoThat's fair, and I'll say I've only recently been getting into scotches. I recently tried a flight of the following which influenced my above comment: - Glenfiddich (18) - Highland Park (18, my personal favourite of these) - Oban (14) - Auchentoshan (21) - Lagavulin (16) Yeah, a Glenfiddich 12 year old isn't anything near any of those.
- orf 5y agoI’d highly recommend trying Laphroaig if you can, it’s really smokey and delicious. But sorry, I didn’t mean to crap on your taste in whisky. I live in a foreign country and I see all kinds of “genuine Scottish whisky” for sale that is absolute piss (hello Scottish Meadow). Something is wrong with places charging extortionate prices for not-great, young mass produced whisky.
- dexterdog 5y agoI really like Laphroaig, but it's definitely an acquired taste. It's like eating moss so most people don't enjoy their first taste and many don't come back for a second.
- gmac 5y agoMoss? Peat smoke, certainly. There’s a hint of it even in the drinking water if you ever stay on Islay.
- ecommerceguy 5y agoBruichladdich Islay Barley, while being an nonpeated Islay, is the best deal in all of whisky.
- dctoedt 5y agoMy nephew-in-law's groom cake (at his wedding) was in the shape of a Laphroaig bottle. The whisky always struck me as like drinking diluted roofing tar.
- 5y ago
- twic 5y agoThey sell an awful lot of it, so someone must like it!
- ravenstine 5y agoIt depends on what you're looking for. I've seen so much "trash" wine and spirits turn out to be total hits with people that I don't think anyone can outright say that any drink is objectively good or bad other than perhaps absolute bottom-shelf spirits. I was at a party back on fourth of July where someone brought this incredible scotch that literally everyone there found to be amazing. My parents decided to get a bottle and we shared it with a group of relatives who unanimously poo-poo'd it. Maybe a connoisseur looks for certain taste and smell profiles most people couldn't discern, but that doesn't mean a given whisky is bad.
- fergie 5y agoThe Speyside malts are pretty underrated in my opinion. Equally, Bells and Famous Grouse, _are_ the purest expression of what Scotch is, and in fact not that easy to get hold of outside of Scotland as we scots might presume.
- orf 5y agoBells and Famous Grouse are available everywhere in the UK? Everywhere that sells any whiskey sells them almost by default.
- ecommerceguy 5y agoWhen I think Speyside I think Macallan.
- fergie 5y agoSorry, should have said "outside of the UK" then. I have been living overseas for a couple of decades, and Bells/Grouse/Teachers are not that easy to come by. Internationally, at least in my experience, Johnny Walker and Chivas Regal seem to be the more common "name" blends, supplemented by all sorts of weird "only for export" brands. You can also get hold of the big single malts pretty easily. Its actually not always that easy to get hold of the standard Scottish "cooking whiskies" which means that a lot of people outside of the UK have a different starting point for defining what Scotch is.
- chrisseaton 5y ago> Bells and Famous Grouse, _are_ the purest expression of what Scotch is, and in fact not that easy to get hold of outside of Scotland Pretty sure you can pick them up at any basic petrol station anywhere in England, 24 hours a day. Sorry to shatter that illusion.
- marban 5y agoI'm into wine but my sense was that GF is more like gas station Scotch in Europe.
- FridayoLeary 5y agomy thoughts exactly. But at least it isn't Jack Daniels..
- smcl 5y agoEhh not really. Some cheaper blends like Grant's (same parent company and bottle shape!) would be what you're thinking of. But Glenfiddich is generally considered to be an accessible, affordable single malt and is often recommended for beginners as an introductory Highland malt. I happily drink Glenfiddich 12 when I'm in the mood for a whisky in a bar that doesn't have a great selection, and I have a Glenfiddich 15 in my cabinet which is really pleasant
- staticassertion 5y agoI like Glenfiddich (15)... but apparently others disagree. I like Laphroig a lot as well, though they're totally different.
- bdcravens 5y agoI don't drink anymore, but the GF15 was always my favorite scotch.
- 1MachineElf 5y agoTheir 15-yr Solera is one of my favorites.
- smcl 5y agoSeems there's a few of us here who are into the 15 :)
- purple_ferret 5y agoHeh, be careful. There are no bigger connoisseurs than American whiskey/whisky drinkers. Scotch is out. Small batch bourbon and Japanese whisky are in.
- smcl 5y agoFor now the “proper” Japanese whisky is just too hard to find to make a dent into Bourbon, let alone Scotch. For me at least it’s possible to get my hands on a few very nice bottles, but for the price they’re just not worth it - I can get a couple of really good Scotch or Irish for the price of one bottle of, say, Hibiki Harmony. Many of the “Japanese” whiskies you’ll see that seem available and reasonably priced are simply Scotch whisky with Japanese labelling heavily implying or outright claiming it’s a product of Japan (such as Nikka From The Barrel, distilled at Ben Nevis distillery). The situation might get better - some producers have agreed to label their products more honestly - but there’s still not enough real stuff available, which is a problem when it takes years to mature and your product is red hot at the moment. I can’t speak for small batch Bourbon, we don’t get much where I am which is a real shame.
- smcl 5y agoHa, so 5 days later the Japanese whisky mistrust issue got covered here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFtTPp9rD2g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFtTPp9rD2g
- divbzero 5y agoThat is the true headline for this article.