Glenglassaugh 40 Years Old 42.5% NV

Professional reviews

Serge Valentin (92)

Colour: deep amber.

Nose: very fragrant, starting on precious wood, raisins and hints of camphor, all that working in sync. Pretty perfect! Goes on with hints of metal polish and damp earth and then many cooked and dried tropical fruits (not fresh). Papayas, pineapples, longans… Gets finally much more leathery and ‘tertiary’, with hints of beef jerky and parsley, even a bit of garlic. Pine resin. A very, very complex old Glenglassaugh! Beautiful.

Mouth: a very rich oakiness at first sipping, but an elegant one. A lot of bitter chocolate, various fruit jellies and jams (strawberries first), some vanilla, various herbal teas (rosehip, chamomile, lime tree blossom), and a wide combination of spices including cloves, cardamom, black pepper, carvi and cinnamon (lots). Develops on loads of dark chocolate and coffee beans plus notes of cough syrup. Very ‘torrefied’.

Finish: long, spicy, quite tannic but not excessively so. Quite some oranges in the aftertaste. Comments: a 40yo that’s still rather nervous and ‘vibrant’. Excellent and, above all, not too oaky. I like it better than the 30yo – am I normal?