Glenkinchie 12 year old

Statistics:



Glenkinchie 10 year old
43% ABV
Pencaitland, South of Edinburgh

Lowland Region

Glenkinchie will also have a warm place in my heart. First and foremost, it's the first distillery I ever visited. My then-fiance, Vicki, and I stopped in the idyllic little hamlet of Pencaitland to see this distillery on the road from Newcastle to Edinburgh. It's a beautiful scene, complete with bright gardens, and lawn bowling.

The distillery tour itself was informative, and being a weekday, the tour guide was willing to spend an inordinate amount of time answering my questions. He also was more than willing to give me multiple samples at the tasting bar at the end of the tour.

The whisky itself is a beautiful, golden color. The taste is very soft, with a hint of spiciness. It's a very good example of a lowland whisky, a species that's all too rare these days. In fact, with its western neighbor, Auchentoshen, it's the only game in town.

Because of it's distinctive style, Glenkinchie is the Lowland representative of the "Classic Malts" - a collection of six of the whiskies owned by Diageo considered to be good representatives of the different types of scotch whisky, as much as it is a marketing campaign.

The six Classic Malts are:
Dalwhinnie (Highland)
Talisker (Skye)
Cragganmore (Speyside)
Oban (West Highland)
Lagavulin (Islay)
Glenkinchie (Lowland)

They're a very easy way to take a tour of the different regions of whisky and a good way to start to understand what you do and don't like.