The Glenturret’s Three New Releases:
Triple Wood, Sherry, and Peated

The Glenturret Distillery – often known as The Famous Grouse Experience – produces, as the latter name suggests, one of the components used in The Famous Grouse blended scotch whisky.

The distillery itself is a nice little place to visit with a great cafe. Their malts weren’t that widely known, being often kept for the blend or bottled in small amounts – for example I’m quite fond of their 10yo which you can find when you look.

That said, most of the good stuff was/is bottled by independent bottlers. However, now Glenturret has launched their own branded single malts, and it’s about time too!

So without further ado, let’s check out my thoughts on the 3 they’ve recently released into their core range:

Triple Wood Edition – 43% abv

Info: A combination of American sherry oak, European sherry oak and American bourbon oak casks. No age statement.
Colour: Clear, sunny gold.
Nose: A fairly sweet mixture between some spirit sweetness, malt and lots of nuts. A gentle oak through the background. Ripe citrus notes.
Palate: Medium thick oils covering your palate with a gently building spice. The longer you hold it on your tongue the more gentle background oaks come through.
Finish: The finish is longer than I imagined it would be, quite a lot longer, although what you’re left with is mostly oak and tannins.
Thoughts: It smells just a touch younger than it probably is. it’s easy enough to drink, and fairly interesting to boot.

Sherry Edition – 43% abv

Info: Matured in both Spanish and American oak sherry seasoned casks. No age statement.
Colour: Bright, later evening sunset gold.
Nose: A similar trait to the nose to the Tripe Wood, Glenturret character coming through. A slightly more familiar, traditional setting is introduced however with more of a deep sweet nutty sherry tone.
Palate: The slightly sweeter nature of the sherry influence comes through nicely here making it very easy drinking, a pinch of spices and sandalwood appearing after a while of holding it in your mouth.
Finish: At the back of the palate to the start of the finish you begin to notice some younger oak notes. The finish goes on for a nice long time, it’s warming and gentle on your chest, with a tannin led oaky finish.
Thoughts: It’s a fairly subtle sherried whisky, easy to get into. There’s a slightly chary smokiness that gives it a spiced bit of ‘oomph’, it’s quite good fun.

Peated Edition – 43% abv

Info: Peated edition made using malted barley dried over peat fires. No age statement.
Colour: Clear, bright, morning gold.
Nose: A gentle, but very present peaty nose, it’s rewarding and keeps you going back to smell it again and again. You’re talking your light highland heather peat, not your coastal Islay peat.
Palate: Fairly thick creamy oils deliver a dram that is peaty, but maybe less than you imagined on the nose. If you’re not a big peat head then this is very accessible peat that’s easy to drink. Hints of smoked bacon right at the back of the palate leading into the finish.
Finish: Those bacon smoked peat notes go on for quite along time slowly giving way to a more malty note, that this time isn’t dominated by wood tannins, although the oak notes are right there at the end.
Thoughts: A nice, light, gently smoked drop of drammage for a cool autumnal evening.

Overall Thoughts: I’m a fan of Glenturret, let’s start with that… they produce great malt and are the only place I’ve ever seen that hand mashes their barley with a paddle! As for these three core malts of the brand… The Triple Wood has a slightly cleaner nose to the Sherry, but the Sherry is a touch sweeter and more easy going. The Peated is fairly subtle, gentle and lovable. However, to me, all three feel just slightly over produced, the wood finishes really giving a slightly engineered impression. That said you’re getting a fairly good dram, at a reasonable(ish) price point – around £45, with more than the minimum ABV, so there’s nothing to much to complain about… they’re good solid drams, but it’s a shame there’s no age statement – for a “premium” whisky entering the market, then having an age statement may possibly help to cement that premium position.

My order of preference on the night would be Peated, Sherry and Triple Wood.

Thanks to The Glenturret for the samples.