The nose is gentle, smooth, and quite sweet, with raisins, vanilla, and loads of honey. Gentle spices and apple notes appear as well, but in general the nose is pretty simple. Master Award, Speyside Single Malts 13-18yo Category – The Scotch Whisky – Masters (The Spirits Business) 2013

Glenfiddich is one of the most, if not THE most, popular single malts around in terms of pure sales. Whether it deserves this level of popularity or not isn't something I'm going to argue over here, and I definitely try not to let such things sway my opinion either way- a lot of things that sell well are vastly outclassed by some lesser-known offerings, but at the same time it seems a lot of times very popular malts get panned to an extent as being 'too commercial' and the like. I can say that this particular offering, for me, falls somewhere in the middle of those two extremes- it's certainly tasty, and dangerously easy to drink, but at the same time it's certainly not what I'd call thrilling by any stretch of the imagination. Essentially it's the whisky equivalent of comfort food- it's tasty and enjoyable, but it's not impressive or particularly interesting. This would be a great drink to break out and share with some friends and relax with, particularly if they don't all drink whisky often.Nose: aromatic, sweet fresh fruit, spice, raisins, honey, vanilla, sherry cask influence is noticeable but well balanced, dark fruits, plum, dark berries, cola, mineral note - this is a complex nose with many layers, very enjoyable, a preview of things to come. The finish starts where the taste ends, lemon citrous, with vanilla, butterscotch and cinnamon. Fades gently leaving a gentle spicy tingle and a light honey sweetness. Nose: A serious fruit blast at first. Mostly melons and apples -- I sense very little citrus. Settles down after a while into a mellow pound cake with a hint of smoke.

What is quite interesting about Glenfiddich 15, however, is how it's aged. Glenfiddich uses a solera system, like the ones typically used to age sherry, in the production of this whisky- effectively, whisky is stored in such a way as that when some whisky is removed to be bottled, it's replaced by new whisky. You never completely get rid of all the older whisky, and you keep adding new stuff as well, allowing for a mix of characteristics from various ages. It's something that I'd be interested to see explored more, preferably at a higher strength. Now for those who are unsure of what a solera bottling is, it's essentially where you have a vat of whisky from all sorts of barrels, and what you do is as you pull whisky out of the vat, you replenish it with more whisky so in theory you have a continually evolving whisky, that gradually gets older and older so that if you started this vat say 15 years ago and have been taking whisky out and putting whisky in, you still have the whisky from 15 years ago in. This whisky is a 15-year-old golden-colored scotch single malted whiskey. It is produced by the Glenfiddich distillery, one of Scotland’s remaining distilleries capable of maintaining its innovative tradition. The finish is slightly bitter yet delicate and buttery, much like the nose. The sweet and salty essence of the finish is accentuated by mixed peppercorns and salted caramel. Grassiness is lingering and delicious, and it has a strong grip.

Popular distilleries

I've been watching the HBO series called Carnivale lately, well to be honest I should say that I'm rewatching the series as HBO is so very awesome and is always making something that I super enjoy such as Game of Thrones, Sopranos, Oz, etc and the thing that I find goes great with a good tv series is a good whisky. This review was done shortly after the Aberlour 16 DC review. I decided to write this review in comparison to Aberlour 16.