Glenfiddich Project XX

A long time ago, when I was a young teenager, I lived in Elgin for a few years and every time we had visitors from outside Scotland, we took them on a tour of the Baxters factory in Fochabers and the Glenfiddich distillery in Dufftown. My parents weren’t really whisky drinkers, so I have no idea why they chose this distillery but I must have done the tour five or six times and it was my first real exposure to Scottish whisky. The distillery felt huge - at least that is my memory of it - and very industrial, nothing like the quaint, romantic image so often portrayed by Scottish distilleries.

The distillery, under the stewardship of the family of founder William Grant, is a behemoth in the world of single malts. It has a long history of making successful decisions at the right times that has seen it grow to its current scale. It is said to account for a whopping 35% of global single malt sales. This Project XX expression is from their “Experimental Series” designed to give the distillery more licence for freedom. Created by not one but 20(!) Malt Masters who were invited to the distillery to select spirits from the thousands of casks in the Glenfiddich warehouse (the name “XX” comes from these twenty). These twenty spirits were then blended by Glenfiddich’s own Malt Master, Brian Kinsman, to form “Project XX”. Let’s see if the wisdom of the crowd created an epic dram!

Bottle

This bottle is beautiful. It bucks every aspect of what I normally look for in a whisky bottle - short, sturdy, classic - but my word is it beautiful. A triangular shape when viewed from above (or below, I guess!) and perfectly black glass. The copper foil and stag’s head on the front are bold and exquisite against the sleek black glass. Even the presentation box seems more premium than others.

Colour

This spirit is unusual for Glenfiddich in that, as far as I am able to determine, it is non-chill filtered and naturally coloured. Sitting just on the warm side of the middle of the colour spectrum, it is a lovely sherry or muscat coloured dram.

Nose - What an unusual aroma - there is much of what you might expect: orchard fruits and apple blossom. But coupled with that are some heavier notes of toffee and even a bite of liquorice. The longer it sits in the glass, I even get a note of cola.

Palate - Very woody flavours in the mouth and, surprisingly, I get a lot less of the fruit here than I’d expected from the nose. It is more fudge and spices and vanilla with only a very slight hint of dried fruits.

Finish - The finish is lovely and long and spicy. You can feel it tingling on your tongue for a good while, and there is a slight bitterness of coffee beans as it recedes. This dram isn’t like anything else I’ve ever tasted.

Overall

In my mind, the Glenfiddich brand has always been synonymous with mainstream, corporate, slightly sterile whisky. This spirit has made me reconsider that, especially as I have re-acquainted myself with a distillery that I once considered (relatively) local. It showcases that Glenfiddich is not a stuffy, corporate distillery churning out millions of litres of the same old stuff (well, maybe that is true for part of the business), but it is also capable of genuine, off-the-wall stuff. The whisky is delicious and surprising and not at some crazy price either (it is regularly available for less than £50 if you are patient). On top of this, the bottle feels like a piece of art, not in the over-the-top way that some rare, stratospheric costing whiskies are today, but in a package available to anyone. And on top of all that, it is bottled at a respectable 47%!

I would heartily recommend this as a left-field whisky for anyone. If you are willing to explore whiskies and their variety of flavours, this is definitely nearer an edge than the middle of the road.