The Glenlivet Nadurra 16 yr

[ILLfarmboy]

Mention was made of The Glenlivet Nadurra 16 yr in another thread but no one has expounded on what little was said. I came across this bottling recently and would like give it a try. But at $53 dollars a bottle I'd like to hear some opinions before making the investment. I did enjoy the 18yr. that was given to me for my birthday a few years back. How do the two bottlings compare?

[AVB]

The Nadurra is a cask strength (118.4 proof for the one I have) version of Glenlivet. Nadurra means natural in Gaelic and it is bottled unchillfiltered and uncolored. Cut down it is pretty close to the 18 yo IMO. Not a bad dram but not outstanding, although few are.

[heatmiser]

I like the Glenlivet Nadurra 16 yr better than the 18 yr. They are both very good IMO.

[ILLfarmboy]

Went ahead and bought a bottle of The Glenlivet Nadurra 16 yr today. I'm working on my third pour since super. I can't say I'm enamored with it but It's quite good. Scotch doesn't have to taste like a smoldering peat bog to be eminently drinkable. Nice floral tones on the nose but it doesn't quite deliver on the palette. Maybe a bit of h2o would open it up.

I'm going to try to attach a pic as much to learn how to do it as anything else so please bare with me.

[Dramiel McHinson]

I've had a couple of bottles of The Glen Livet Nadurra 16 yo Cask Strength. The current bottle is marked bottled on 06/06 and batch # 0606A @ 57.2% ABV. I'd sum it up by saying it's a strong, one-dimensional dram. I'd have to find another reason to drink it besides looking for smoothness and complexity with balance. For me, this is Deer Camp whisky. You can start the fire with it, marinate, season and tenderize your camp meat, clean your rifle, sterilize the cuts on your hand, treat your skeeter bites, and get drunk with just one bottle shared amongst close friends. It's so useful, I think I'll keep a bottle in my tool box :-)

[ILLfarmboy]

I wouldn't use it to clean my guns. Shooter's choice, and Rem-oil do quite well for that. But having spent some time with it, neat, and with water added I have to say your right. It is a bit one dimensional. Nice nose but it just doesn't quite deliver. Oh well, I've wasted a lot more money on sillier purchases.

[melting]

I really hate to resurrect a post this old but I'm going to anyway. I'm about half way through my second bottle of Glenlivet Nadurra and I think it's one of the best whiskeys available. It costs around 45 bucks a bottle in N.H. I don't find it one dimensional with a nice sharp feeling going down. I believe it could hold it's own against bottles costing many times as much.

Chris

[drrich1965]

Interesting reading this old thread. First, a single malt is rarely drinkable over 50%- you just have to cut it with water when it is this high to get any of the complexity of what SMS can be. HEre are my tasting notes for the Nadurra that I have sampled.

85-Bottom of highly reccomendable range

Sm

Glenlivet 16yo Nadurra (58.5%, OB)

Nose: Applies, cookies and cream ice cream. Mouth: Oh, that is so much nicer than the other "standard" bottling. Very honeyed, lots of malt, vanilla, other spices. Finish: Long, more honey, something dry, perhaps a nice wood. This is a totally great honey pot, perhaps the most blatantly honeyed whisky I have had. Yet, there is a complexity to it that makes it balanced and elegant, never over the top.

[Gillman]

That's a good point about single malt being generally unpalatable over 50% ABV. There are a couple of exceptions IMO, one is a cask-strength Aberlour I once had - the intense sherry purity of the dram came out really well at high strength.

But in general, the complexities of malt whisky are masked when the proof is too high. Aberlour in my experience is not notably complex, hence the exception to the rule and no doubt there are some others. Connemara too is very good at high strength, yet it again is not a notably complex whisky.

In bourbon though, I find a good bourbon usually is better at a high proof (within reason, for me this is between 100 and say 107 or so proof).

Somehow the high proof tends to accentuate the complexity of bourbon whereas this is not so with most malts.

They really are (from so many standpoints) different drinks albeit related historically and culturally.

Gary

[drrich1965]

That's a good point about single malt being generally unpalatable over 50% ABV. There are a couple of exceptions IMO, one is a cask-strength Aberlour I once had - the intense sherry purity of the dram came out really well at high strength.

But in general, the complexities of malt whisky are masked when the proof is too high. Aberlour in my experience is not notably complex, hence the exception to the rule and no doubt there are some others. Connemara too is very good at high strength, yet it again is not a notably complex whisky.

In bourbon though, I find a good bourbon usually is better at a high proof (within reason, for me this is between 100 and say 107 or so proof).

Somehow the high proof tends to accentuate the complexity of bourbon whereas this is not so with most malts.

They really are (from so many standpoints) different drinks albeit related historically and culturally.

Gary

Very good point about the Aberlour- I think that applies to many "sherry monsters" (which are not my favs, but the Abundah is good stuff, for sure)....

As you pointed out, what I stated was a massive generalization, but seems to apply to those malts that strive for balance between various elements, which is how I would characterize many Glenlivets.

I just got a good chuckle over the author who wrote he wound not clear his gums with it! Ill trade for mouthwash.

[TBoner]

Just to offer a dissenting opinion on cask strength Scotch, I find many of them quite worthy: Laphroaig CS, Ardbeg Uigeadail, the aforementioned A'bunadh, and many of the Gordon & Macphail single-cask bottlings.

That said, the argument could be made that the lack of chill filtration and the added strength and variety of ages (not including the G&M) in these bottlings add dimension to otherwise less nuanced whisky: either peat bombs or sherry bombs. I can't disagree much, except to say that a cask-strength Dallas Dhu I sampled once was mind-blowing (and other G&M efforts, too), to say that I find Ardbeg and Laphroaig quite complex even at their standard strengths, and to say that cask strength bottlings do afford the luxury of adapting a particular flavor profile to fit your own palate more readily than do already-diluted iterations.

All of the above being said, I wonder if slightly lower barrel entry proofs among Scotch producers account for some of the "difficulty" inherent in enjoying cask-strength Scotch. I have rarely seen a cask-strength Scotch go over 115 proof, while barrel-proof bourbon exceeds 125 proof regularly. Stagg, Booker's, etc., seem to benefit greatly from water being added, while 100-114 proof bourbon fares well. Scotch with comparable percentages of dilution, rather than comparable proofs, might be a more fair comparison.

Throw all of the above out the window, natch, when tasting barrel proof rye. To wit: Handy rye (2007 batch) is the finest whisk(e)y from anywhere in the world I've tasted. It suits my palate and my "objective" definition of good whisk(e)y, too.

All of this brings to mind what may be an obvious question: where is the barrel-proof Irish whiskey? Can you imagine how rich and multi-dimensional Redbreast 12 would be at cask-strength, given its already mouthfilling, fruity depth?

[drrich1965]

Great comments Tim. There are many, many exceptions to every "rule" and you are correct about the Ardget Oogy- a wonderfully complex whisky at over 54%, especially the 2004 botteling- spendid.

[Gillman]

There is a cask Connemara, or at least offered at a high-than-normal proof, which is very good.

Gary

[drrich1965]

There is a cask Connemara, or at least offered at a high-than-normal proof, which is very good.

Gary

Here are my notes on this one, scored 80, reccomendable...

Conemara Cask Strenght (57.9%, OB, circa 2006)

August 30th, 2006. Blind, I would have guessed this is Laphroaig at first, when I spell in the 50ml bottle. Deeply peaty, big yet smooth. Ok, not as big as a Laphroaig, but perhaps Laphroaig's little brother, yet not the medicinal, hospital gauze notes. In the glass, a touch spirity, better add some water and open this up. Wow, water opens up something sweet. Now the smoke is almost gone, but there is a sweet flower smell, not lavender, but something like that. Mouth: Sweet and smoky, that sweet floral quality right before the finish. A bit too thin to be truly great, perhaps too "smooth." Yet, this is pretty good stuff here, that sweet floral quality ads a really nice layer of complexity. Not complexity, perhaps, but balance for the peatyness. I wonder what this would taste like at an older age, with added complexity. that would be a hell of a dram! Finish is long, smoky. Second taste: I think a bit of the newness has warn off, and I a really wishing for something more complex. A good malt.

[Dramiel McHinson]

I just got a good chuckle over the author who wrote he wound not clear his gums with it! Ill trade for mouthwash.

[Gillman]

Here is a 53.7% ABV unchillfiltered Bushmills Single Cask from a sherry hogshead. This seems a version of 1608 although "specially selected for Canada". The label states it is "mellowed" in a sherry cask so perhaps the whiskey was finished in such a cask, not aged throughout for its life, hard to say.

Nose: rubber, sulphur, wet moss.

Taste: sweetness is first to the fore, with good oak and malt underpinning. Some petrol, so typical of good Irish even though this is not pot-still whiskey. Oddly a kind of distant smoky effect appears. (Bushmills does not use peated malt. It did at one time. It had stopped (surely) by 1989 when this was distilled, still, I get a faint smokiness).

Aftertaste: Not long-lasting and now some of the scents of the nose seem to recur.

An interesting whiskey to say the least. Old Irish whiskey can offer stupendous complexity, of which this is an example, but it's not for everyone.

I see this as going well after a long bike ride, with a Guinness on the side and a piece of seed cake followed by a steaming cuppa (tea that is). As so often and not least with bourbon, drinks always taste best in their native environment.

Gary

[AVB]

Gary,

Are you sure you wanted to post about the new Bushmill's 1608 Irish Whiskey in the Glenlivet Nadurra Scotch Whisky thread?

[Gillman]

I realise I am mixing some notes in here which should go in another thread, sorry about that. I was inspired by the comments about Connemara cask strength and simply wanted to highlight another Irish whiskey of impressive strength (and taste).

About 1608: this brand was around years ago in duty free stores, then I think it went away for a while, and now I understand it has come back.

My bottle isn't really a 1608 but I think it may be a special version of it, since the words 1608 are on the label albeit not emphasized. It is a kind of one-off I think, but also the profile probably is similar to that of the restored 1608.

Sorry for the digression. By the way I have had Glenlivet Nadurra and it is very fine.

Gary

[Gillman]

Just another comment which is more within the original topic, which is that while Nadurra delivers excellent Glenlivet character, people looking for excellent but reasonably-priced malt should not overlook The Glenlivet 12 years old. This was THE malt in the old days and it still sets a high standard. I tried some recently and was wowed by its balance and elegance. While older expressions of Glenliver such as Nadurra are interesting, as e.g., the French oak expression of the 12, the regular 12 has been fine-tuned to great quality. It is almost wine-like in its balance, elegance and in an odd sort of way its taste. Nadurra, by all means, but malt enthusiasts should not overlook an old standard, The Glenlivet, which in truth is better than ever.

Gary

[Mr. Smith]

In my opinion the Glenlivet Nadurra is one of the best x-bourbon matured single malts available from any Speyside distillery. First-fill bourbon maturation gives this whisky an excellent freshness and zestyness seldomly found in a Glenlivet. Please don't compare Scotch Single Malts with bourbon. It is just as bad as a comparison as doing the opposite. A great bourbon is very hard to compare to a great Scotch Single Malt.

[Gillman]

I tend to agree with this (that bourbon and malt whisky should not be compared). Still, at the "edges" of both drinks, a comparison seems sometimes to force itself. I get this occasionally with the drier expressions of Buffalo Trace (e.g., Blanton, some Triple A), and with 1792. Some malts, presumably those aged in very fresh ex-bourbon casks (those not re-charred completely to neutrality and first fill) do suggest a bourbon character. I must say Glenlivet, the regular one, does not.

Gary