Glengoyne 12 Year Scotch
12 year Glengoyne Highland whiskey that is well worth the wait.
At Glengoyne everything takes time. Six years are spent before any of the precious spirit has even been allowed to touch them by the Coopers as they painstakingly preparing their hand selected oak casks.
It is not only the inordinate amount of time during the longest distillation process in the whole of Scotland but also in the extraordinary care that is taken of the barley, along with the dedicated devotion to the spirit creation process that are key to creating what is the subtle and complex flavor of Glengoyne Single Malt.
The Coopering taken care of, the barley seed is first steeped for around two days, then it is turned for a further six as naturally occurring enzymes convert the barley seed starches into sugars.
Then rather than drying with peat, because Glengoyne prefers to add flavor naturally and by the slow distilling and aging in fine sherry oak casks, after this tumbling the barley seed is simply warm air dried.
Next comes malting. The sugar levels that created now determining the alcohol that can be extracted from the eventual Wort. After malting comes milling and mashing where first the malted barley is exactingly ground giving to access the precious natural sugars. Although this sounds quite straightforward, milling must be done just so and is precisely monitored.
The ground barley is given three washes, each turned by the Mashtuns paddles in increasingly hot water extracting the maximum of sugar into the Wort. The first two washes only are distilled, but, wasting nothing as the frugal Scots are well known to do, the third wash which containing what remains of the sugars will be used as the first wash next time.
Over 56 exacting hours inside pine washbacks, yeast will feeds on the Wort's sugars and carbohydrates; the famous Glengoyne flavor begins to form. Temperature and timing is crucial. The Wort is now Wash which will be three times distilled inside Glengoynes unique stills.
Taking only the precious middle cut Glengoyne's Stillmen begin nursing the mid cut through the ponderous and deliberate distilling process, the longest in all of Scotland.
The Wash first becomes Low Wines and then Spirit as it comes into prolonged contact with the copper stills which intensify and concentrate wanted flavors whilst it subdues and strips out others; very slowly Glengoyne’s unique characteristics are being honed.
As with everything else in the process, timing is everything. It will become Whisky only after it has been casked for three years and 1 day.
In Glengoyne 12 year Scotch this time and care has resulted in a premium whisky with an all natural warm golden appearance. Its enticing bouquet is honeyed, scents of lemon zest, coconut oil and woody dark oak.
The taste is sweet sticky toffee apples, spiced with ginger and cinnamon, bright with zesty orange and softened with Scottish shortbread. The finish is sublime and exquisitely balanced. Discern a hint of sherry and soft oak from the fine casks.
