A lot has happened in 46 years. We’ve seen the complete tenure of seven U.S. presidents, the rise of rap music, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the ubiquity of the battery-powered car, a global pandemic, and eleven theatrical Star Wars movies. If you had to sit inside a barrel for all those years, you’d miss a lot of tragedy but you’d miss a lot of good times as well. Well, Glenglassaugh’s new single malt whisky has done just that. The Scottish distillery has just announced it will be releasing a limited-edition expression that’s been aged for 46 years.
You’d be forgiven for not being familiar with the name Glenglassaugh. The Highland region distillery, whose lineage dates all the way back to 1875, sat dormant for 22 years between 1986 and 2008. The cost of operation was just too high for the company during a time when the Scotch industry wasn’t exactly booming on a global level. Since being revived in 2008, Glenglassaugh has changed hands a couple of times and is now owned by the Brown-Forman Corporation (parent company of Jack Daniel’s). Fortunately for us, when a Scotch distillery shutters its doors for a couple of decades with plenty of untapped stock lying in wait behind them, we get some very old and usually pretty good single malts.
Entering the distillation process back in 1975, this U.S.-exclusive single malt spent 46 years inside a single ex-bourbon barrel that was hand-picked by famed Master Blender Rachel Barrie. The batch yields just 215 numbered bottles and possesses coastal aromas of mango, plum, cherry, black currant, and even ambergris, leading into a palate of tropical fruit and grapefruit, along with more mango and cherry.
Glenglassaugh 46 is not even the distillery’s oldest single malt. A couple of years back, it debuted a rare 50-year whisky. However, the 46-year’s exclusivity to the American market may make it easier to come by. Its suggested retail price will be $4,800 when it rolls out next month.
