by Delin Watmough
Hello all, looks like it is once again time for another of my monthly blogs. When I signed up to do these blogs, I had no idea the pandemic and all the restrictions would last as long as it has but at least now we are seeing a tiny light at the end of the tunnel (if the variants don’t get us locked down again). Several of the big highland games are coming back at the end of summer and while I haven’t heard the status of our festival yet, Edmonton, Calgary and Canmore have all announced they are holding their Games. I can’t wait, it has been a long winter without raising a glass or playing the pipes with all the excellent people of the FSC.
This month, I am going to do a little something I like to call “A Tale of 3 Glenfiddich’s”.
As most of you know, Glenfiddich is one of the largest distilleries in Scotland, located in Duffton in the Speyside region. They're also one of the most awarded distilleries in Scotland, getting their water from the Robbie Dhu spring. Owned by William Grant and sons and in operation since 1886, Glenfiddich means “valley of the deer“ in old Gaelic, which is why their iconic logo is a stag. Their signature whisky, Glenfiddich 12, is quite literally everywhere. In fact, if you order a scotch in a bar pretty much anywhere in Canada, chances are pretty good you will be served a Glenfiddich 12. However, I have been known to call Glenfiddich 12 the “Bud Light” of whisky’s- partly because it is everywhere and the other reason is because I find that it tastes thin and very one noted with virtually very little complexity. That being said, Glenfiddich makes many other very fine products and this month I am going to review 3 of them.
The first of this month’s selections is a whisky I bought at a Robbie Burns silent auction a few years ago and in my defense I had a lot to drink that night- so much so that when Steff and I got home, I smelled like whisky so bad she kicked me out to the couch. Anyways, a number of years ago Glenfiddich released a pure malt special edition in a collectable tin and that is this month’s first selection: Glenfiddich’s Pure Malt Special Reserve. Now, I suspect this was more or less a marketing ploy as reviews for this whisky are very few and far between, but the tin looks really nice on the shelf (picture of my tin below). The only review I found compared it to a Laphroig without the smoke, with no tasting or nosing notes whatsoever. I have seen a couple of these on some liquor store shelves in the bigger cities. However, no one in the area stocks them.