Ask a Glengoyne 18 drinker what comes closest to their bottle for less, and the answer is sitting in the same warehouse back at the distillery. Glengoyne 15, $162, gives them about 90% of what the 18 does. Same house, three fewer years, and most of the character carries straight over.
Glengoyne 18 arrived when the core range was reworked, taking over from the old 17 year old, built on what the distillers call a generous share of first-fill sherry casks. Pour it on a cool evening and the nose opens on milk chocolate, vanilla and melon, grapefruit behind them, dry sherry and fruitcake building as the glass sits. The palate is rich and rounded: cinnamon and ginger, almonds, orange marmalade, a sweeter sherry, caramel. The finish runs long on gentle spice and easy-going oak. At $11.62 a standard drink, a pour at home lands in the middle of this group.
It's $276 at Dan Murphy's this week. It usually sells around $276, and across what we've seen it has run from $220 to $276, so the week's price is right at the familiar mark.
Now the view from the bottles nearest it. What would their drinkers pay for Glengoyne 18, each starting from what they pay for their own? A Glenfarclas 25 drinker would pay about $337 for it, 77% of what their own bottle costs them, marking it down mainly for being younger than theirs. Turn it round and a Glengoyne 18 drinker puts the Glenfarclas 25 at 78% of their own, marking it down for being older than theirs and not from the Highlands. Across the bottles nearest the 18, the answers run from $106 to $346. At $276, this week's price sits inside that spread.
Three stand-ins, if you want a change in the glass.
Glengoyne 21, usually $361. Honey and cookie dough, soft citrus and apple, a dry vanilla-and-cinnamon line over that creamy Glengoyne malt. To an 18 drinker it gives about 96% of what the 18 does. Three more years in the same style, and it shows them.
The GlenDronach 15 Revival, usually $176. Pedro Ximénez and oloroso casks bring ripe cherries, walnuts, milk chocolate and marzipan on the nose, then spicy damsons, dried fruit, dark chocolate and cloves. To an 18 drinker it gives about 91%. Deeply sherried and full-bodied, from a different distillery but close company.
Glengoyne 15, usually $162. Vanilla, ginger and toffee, raisins and hazelnuts, an oily palate with lively spice and cocoa to close. To an 18 drinker it gives about 90%, for a bit over half the 18's price. The closest of the three, and the same hand made it.
So, who's it for? If Glengoyne 18 is already your pour, nothing here asks you to move — $276 is the week's price and it's the one you know. If you want the same evening for less, Glengoyne 15 is the sibling to reach for first. If you'd rather climb a notch and stay in the family, the 21 carries the style further. And if you lean towards deep sherry and don't mind crossing to another distillery, the GlenDronach 15 Revival is right there. A yes in every direction.
None recorded.
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