Whisky Season 2012 Update: Rachel Barrie's Selection

There's a reason why I'm showing you a small ramekin of fried oatmeal mixed with onions to start this article.  Known as "mealy" in the town of Oldmeldrum, the home of Glen Garioch distillery, it's on the menu at the local diner just down the street from the whisky legend.  It's important to understand how important grains are to this part of Scotland.  They're a big part of the diet, both solid and liquid, and the aromas of barley and sweet grain hang in the air as you walk through town.  It's terroir, so to speak.

Glen Garioch was the big shocker for us on this year's trip to Scotland.  We didn't realize how beautiful the distillery was, how nice the people were, how important the legacy was, and how good the whisky tasted.  GG is the Morrison-Bowmore distillery you forget about.  You forget that it's one of the oldest in Scotland.  You forget that there's a lot of pride in its history.  A quick trip through the distillery, however, changes that.  We left as Glen Garioch superfans.  You can read more about that here.

By the time we made it to Glasgow over a week later, we had nothing but great things to tell the people at Morrison-Bowmore headquarters.  No person was more happy to hear about our experience than Rachel Barrie, who apparently grew up nearby.  She was so pumped that she went to the back and brought out a cask sample she had hand picked for Bowmore earlier in the week.  She wanted us to have it.  We took it.  It's coming.  Read on below!

1998 Glen Garioch 14 Year Old K&L Exclusive Single Barrel Cask Strength Single Malt Whisky $87.99 (Pre-Order) - On last year's trip to Scotland, David and I stopped by Glendronach distillery on a whim, fell in love, and now it's one of the top whiskies we sell at K&L.  This year's version of that was Glen Garioch distillery in Oldmeldrum.  An old-fashioned, picturesque distillery located in the center of the quaint village, generating romanticism like you wouldn't believe.  Part of the Morrison-Bowmore portfolio, Glen Garioch's whisky creation has been put into the hands of former Ardbeg superstar Rachel Barrie, who jumped ship to Bowmore last year.  We weren't planning on selecting a cask of Glen Garioch, but after stopping by early on in our trip, we told Rachel how much we enjoyed our visit while meeting with her a week later. Being originally from the area, Rachel was so overjoyed we had connected so deeply with her own sense of youthful nostalgia, that she ran to the back to grab a cask sample she had picked out for Bowmore recently - a 1998 single cask aged in a hogshead that had previously held peated whisky.  GG had dabbled in the peated Highland style before 1994, but the whisky produced today is completely without smoke.  This very special cask, chosen by Rachel, has all the beautiful sweet grains we love about the malt with just a whisper of peat in the background.  The palate is elegant and lean, but the fruit and vanilla are concentrated in its core. The whisky tastes like the town of Oldmeldrum - old world, country, rustic, and down-home.  That's terroir in whisky.

-David Driscoll

David Driscoll