Glen Ord 25 YO

Photo provided by The Whisky Exchange

Full of flavour and very appetis­ing indeed, this is the sec­ond spe­cial release from the only North­ern High­lands dis­tillery to retain its own malt­ings. Matured in a mix­ture of Amer­i­can and Euro­pean Oak casks, there are only 3600 num­bered bot­tles world­wide. Often described as “per­ilously drink­able”, it has only been avail­able as a single malt in the last ten years and it is pre­sented in a unique, hand etched Glen Ord decanter. Glen Ord is fresh, lively with well bal­anced flavours of honey and lemon juice, some acid­ity and dry spices. The fin­ish is medium lenghth crisp, smoky and dry. Tremen­dous depth of flavour and bal­ance, prompt­ing Jim Mur­ray to award this 95 points in his Whisky Bible.

The nose is very rounded and sweet, yet rather ner­vous. Quite grassy at first nos­ing, on fern, hay, straw… Devel­ops on smoked tea and camomile. Very, very good, with lit­tle wood influ­ence, let­ting the distillery’s char­ac­ter shine through. Some nice whiffs of sea breeze (yes, I know, Ord isn’t really near the sea). Mouth: creamy but again quite ner­vous, bold and pow­er­ful. Lots of pep­per, cooked apples and cin­na­mon. A bit of fruc­tose, crys­tallised angel­ica, lemon peel… A very seri­ous whisky that doesn’t play any dirty trick, and with a superb bal­ance, at that. Most sat­is­fy­ing. 90 points.

Glen Ord 25 YO8.3103

Tasting note by Whiskyfun