Disclaimer: No disrespect, ridicule, or slight is intended towards people named Glen or Glenn. In fact The Cabinet is especially fond of Glenn Gould and Glenn Miller. Opinions regarding Glenn Frey and Glen Campbell are more variable, but that is not relevant. It's a fine name. You might be interested to know that it peaked in popularity in 1962 when it ranked 55th among boy's names in the USA. 55th! Impressive. Now it has dropped to 861st. So there is disrespect out there. But not from us.
The Cabinet met last week to consider whiskies with the prefix "Glen" in their names. We recognize that this is arbitrary, but oddly enough, as you will see, there was a commonality among the five whiskies tasted that went beyond coincidental naming.
So, first things first. Why are so many Scotch whiskies named Glensomethingorother? Glen means narrow valley in Scottish Gaelic. Any of you who have been to Scotland will recall an abundance of such narrow valleys. And those of you who haven't can surely imagine it.
Our glens were the Glen Moray "Elgin Classic" Port Cask Finish, the Glenmorangie Original, the Glenkinchie 12 Year Old, the Glenfiddich Cask of Dreams 2012 Canadian Edition, and, finally, the Glenfiddich 21 Year Old. Five whiskies! We normally only sample four, but the Glenfiddichs were very low and only yielded half-pours.
Tasting all of them, back to back, we came to a startling conclusion.
But before I reveal that, a little more etymology to educate you, and to allow suspense regarding our startling conclusion to build in the background. "Moray" has various meanings, but the one that is most sensible is "by the sea", so Glen Moray means "narrow valley by the sea". It's a Speyside in Elgin, about five kilometers from the sea. I suppose that's close enough. "Morangie" means "tranquility" (although some translate it as "big meadows", but those are often tranquil, so fine). Glenmorangie is right by the sea, and therefore more moray than moray, and it is beside the A9 motorway and thus probably not especially tranquil. However, presumably it was more tranquil at its founding in 1843. "Kinchie" is a corruption of De Quincy, who were the original owners of the land the Glenkinchie distillery sits on. Good move - Glendequincy would not sound Scottish enough. And "fiddich" is deer. "Narrow valley of the deer". And sure enough, a handsome stag is featured on many Glenfiddich bottles.
Now you know.
And the suspense is over. The startling conclusion is that they all taste more or less the same. I'm exaggerating, as the Glenmorangie does offer a hint of citrus on the palate. But I'm really only exaggerating slightly. All are light on the nose, malty and caramelly in flavour, and short in the finish. All are well crafted with no off notes or anything unpleasant or unwelcome. But they are a little dull. Good whiskies for novices and casual drinkers. Serious scotch enthusiasts should perhaps look elsewhere. The Glenfiddich 21 Year Old had a lovely mahogany colour though. I'll give it that. And it entertained us with a broken cork. See the photos below for the solution to this vexing problem.
However, none of this prevented us from having a marvelous evening. Sometimes you only need good enough scotch if you have exemplary company.
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