Whisky felling #8. Three decades of Glen Grant: Glen Grant GM 1965/2013, Glen Grant GM 1952/2012 and Glen Grant GM 30 yo Crown of flowers label

New Year is very close and this is the time when you'd like to relax and sip some damn tasty old Glen Grants. But let's start from the very beginning...

Previous autumn we've tasted a sample of 60 yo Glen Grant (that was the very first Whisky felling #1 event) and liked it a lot. So it was quite logical and symbolic to taste the whole bottle :) 

As sparring partners we found 48 yo Glen Grant distilled in 1965 and recently I bought a bottle of 30 yo Glen Grant for Italian market with stenciled flowers on a label (most likely bottled before 1972), which I was very curious to taste. 

So final idea of this tasting was the following: three Glen Grants (all from GM) from three different decades (60-s, 50-s and 40-s). Here they are:

Glen Grant 1965/2013 GM 40% - combination of refill sherry butt and american hogsheads. 

Nose: fresh and light, touch of mint, lemon pie, flowers and perhaps green grass. Very elegant one. 

Taste: relatively dense and not weak at all. Rich and utterly drinkable (large sips recommended) with lots of different fruitcakes.

Finish: long one on fruits and soft spices.

Overall: clean and fresh 48 yo nectar with no signs of oak. 

Score = 23 22 23 23, 91/100!

Glen Grant 1952/2012 GM 40% - 1st fill sherry butt & refill sherry hogshead were used. 

Nose: start quite similar to the previous one with fresh and grassy notes. Then you get some white mushrooms, forest nuts, resin and wild honey. Aroma changes and develops.

Taste: sweet and oily, nuts and honey, it just coats your tongue and melts.

Finish: long one developing on honey, softest spices, mint, some oak and citrus. 

Overall: gorgeous malt and I presume the oldest I have tried so far. When you're not limited to smallest sips it tastes even better :) 

Score = 24 23 24 24, 95/100!

Glen Grant 30 yo GM 70 proof (pre 1972 bottling) - the riddle of this evening, I'd say. The colour is much paler comparing to its predecessors, I won't be much surprised if it was matured in bourbon barrels. 26 and 2/3 ounces, 70 proof, flowers on the label suggest that it was distilled at the beginning of 40-s or even at the end of 30-s. 

Nose: also fresh with honey notes, but then it gets drier, whiffs of tobacco appear and even some pickles. Interesting style. 

Taste: lemony and sharp, sweet start and bitter finish. 

Finish: long one, crystallized oranges and touch of medicine (these slightly chemical notes that cough tablets can leave). 

Overall: well, in the first round we tasted it after 60 yo GG and got the score of 88/100. Then we decided to change the order and have it as a first dram in a second round, it tasted much better and scored 90/100. Once again I'd like to underline how personal and subjective all these scores are: you drink the same malts and get 2 points margin by just changing the order of drams. I guess that fair score would be around 89/100. 

Score = 22.5 22.5 22 22, 89/100!