Port finishes have become something of a fixture in modern Scotch, but GlenDronach Port Wood remains one of the more coherent examples. Released at 46% ABV and non-chill-filtered, it takes GlenDronach's customary sherry-cask spirit and gives it a final period in port pipes, layering ruby fruit over the distillery's already-rich house style.
GlenDronach has been a sherry-cask house almost since its founding in 1826, and the marriage of sherry and port maturation here is more sympathetic than it might first appear: both wines come from fortified, oxidative traditions, and both leave behind dried-fruit and oxidised-oak character that the GlenDronach distillate carries comfortably.
The nose is plum, red cherry, milk chocolate and dried cranberry, set against a familiar sherried oak. The palate is generously fruited — raspberry jam, raisin, cherry compote, cocoa and a curl of cinnamon. The finish is long and warming, dark berries fading into oak tannin and a final note of dried fig.
It sits sensibly alongside the 12 and 18 in the GlenDronach core range — different in emphasis, similar in quality, and a pleasant detour for anyone who already knows the house style.
