First Impressions
The Time Re:Imagined trilogy — 30, 40 and 50 Year Olds — was Glenfiddich's reframing of its prestige aged range, presented in distinctive sculpted decanters. The 30 is the gateway to the trilogy, drawn from American and European oak casks set aside for very long maturation. At 43% it is bottled to carry weight without losing the lighter notes that long maturation can bury.
Tasting
The nose is the full vocabulary of old whisky — beeswax, dried apricot, fig, candied peel, dark honey and sherried raisin, with milk chocolate and a faint note of pipe tobacco. The palate is deep and unhurried, dried fruit and dark honey laid over a sherried backbone of fig, walnut and soft brown spice. The finish runs very long and dries with grace.
The Verdict
Glenfiddich 30 Time Re:Imagined earns a five. Three decades in the cask is a long apprenticeship, and the result is a whisky that has nothing left to prove. The orchard fruit of the young Glenfiddich is still there, but it has been buried in oak, dried fruit and quiet spice. The trilogy's gateway, but no consolation prize — a serious old Speysider in its full middle age.
