Glen Garioch 1999

With regard to the grey hair; I have embraced my grey many years ago, so no issue with that. Annual resolutions; often fervently declared, are sometimes ambitious but I appreciate the setting of goals and it’s good to set one’s sights beyond the usual horizon. And then we come to the themes and prognostications we are told will come to pass.

 As whisky goes, many outlets have boldly made their predictions for the coming year. Many of those dire and foreboding prognostications yield an overlapping venn diagram, suggesting that the year to come will be one of harsh realities and cutting back. The price of bottles will continue to climb due to a combination of an increasingly problematic worldwide economy, as well as unfortunate and deliberate corporate decisions on pricing and a volatile secondary market. 

I listen to these predictions from various outlets, and there is a negativity that is breathed in, not unlike second hand smoke. Certainly, there is no desire on anyone’s part to make readers and viewers walk away from this liquid that we all love. But, again, the climate of escalating prices with the backdrop of these repeated prognostications may, and most likely will, convince many to pause or stop their whisky journeys.

I started to realise the impact of this second hand smoke when a buddy in my whisky club recently told me he was going to stop looking for single malts altogether after watching the price hikes on his favourite malts over the past year and then reading a few articles online about 2024 predictions. He told me the joy of bottle hunting was sapped by all of this, and he said he thought about giving up on whisky and moving to tequila.

We had a mini intervention session, and he is a bit better now. He is not a die-hard whisky enthusiast as many of us are. Nonetheless, he has really embraced single and blended malts over the past few years and thoroughly enjoys them. I wonder if his voiced thoughts are not so very far from many others presently on their own whisky journeys. 

We can speak of a new whisky loch, a whisky bubble that will burst, an examination of the steady rise of prices that we face. We can analyse and point out the terrible price hikes of so many whisky labels that leave us scratching our heads and clutching our wallets. We can – and should – ask the questions that Fletcher has recently, and most eloquently posed in his debut Dramface piece: who is going to buy and drink all of this Scotch whisky? How is this all going to play out? Yes, there are concerning trends that are afoot, and there are tough questions to ask. But, as someone who likes to see the glass as half full, I feel it necessary to toss some ballast from this ship that we feel slowly sinking.

Everything changes. Most people don’t seek or embrace change. I get it. But, let’s put this into perspective. It wasn’t all that long ago that whisky was in such disfavour distilleries were shuttered by the dozen and there was a real fear that the industry would completely tank. Approximately 30% of all working whisky distilleries in Scotland stopped production or were mothballed in the 1980s. To drive this home to many whisky enthusiasts; think about the powerhouse that we know as Ardbeg. So many forget that it stopped production in 1981 and only resumed fully in 1997. People also tend to forget that the early 1990s had its own inflation-related economic setbacks at that time. The dynamics are not identical to the present day, but it was not a good time for the whisky landscape.

What we choose to remember, however, is when the pendulum swung in the opposite direction and whisky’s resurgence came to be. We remember and reflect on the time, say 2000 to 2018 of lower prices, a resurgence of distilleries and expressions, and ever-expanding choice of well-crafted single malt whiskies. Halcyon days, for sure. It was lovely. And yet, how could we not expect the pendulum to swing back, once again?  We could not have logically thought that the optimal whisky times would remain ad infinitum. As a student of history, this is a recurring pattern. Ups and downs, highs and lows. Pendulums swing back and forth. It is to be expected, though the downturns are certainly not warmly greeted, nor should they be.

As anyone of my generation knows, there is a certain Canadian band whose lyrics always seem to apply so well to life. And, with apologies to Rush, I add some words to the oft-sung phrase:

A whisky drinker may be hopeful, yet discontent,
He knows changes aren’t permanent –
But change is.

While we can wring our hands, as my whisky club pal had done, we also must remember our love of whisky. As for most of us whisky enthusiasts, while we can adapt how we spend our money, we needn’t succumb to doom and gloom. We need not lose the love and passion for the drink we adore. 

Our appetites and curiosities for all things whisky remain heightened. Our love of the bottle hunt ought not be extinguished. Our interest to learn about the industry, the labels, the expressions, and all other facets of uisge beatha ought not be any less passionate. We still look to learn, absorb, and ultimately purchase bottles. While there is a more pronounced push and pull between the economy and prices versus our desire to continue our whisky journeys, and while we should not be blind or deaf to the realities around us, I would suggest to us all – as I did to my whisky club pal – that we ought to chalk up this upswing of the pendulum as a challenge.

Whisky should remain a happy place. A welcoming oasis. An intriguing area that still should provide interest for a good bottle hunt. Certainly, unlike the bottle hunts of a few years ago, for the majority of us the hunts of today are done more judiciously, for sure. Whether doing deliberate savings with a greater time in-between hunts, accepting a challenge to not purchase at RRP, or starting to investigate potential bargains in auctions (see Broddy’s helpful article before you do!), we should embrace the new dynamics as a challenge. For me, I still do love a bottle hunt.

And so, the hunt was on again last weekend, while away from North Carolina. It had been a while, and with present realities I intentionally saved my pennies before I went. It was a good day. I went to a few stores, and then back-tracked to the second store I had visited. Two bottles had caught my eye. One was an Old Particular bottling of Mortlach and the other was this “dusty”; this Glen Garioch special release from 1999 and bottled in 2013 – more than a decade ago.

With the new realities being what they are, I could only afford one. I didn’t shake my fist and cuss. I didn’t choose to forego my whisky chase. I know that prices are up, but I will – albeit more deliberately – continue my whisky journey. I recognise the landscape for what it is, and my bottle hunts may be less frequent as I use the added time to save up. But, it doesn’t make the hunt any less enjoyable as I head out with my single malt pickaxe. 

So, in that store, how was I to choose between the two bottles? Well, I have a creaky mental file cabinet between my ears. When I saw the Glen Garioch bottle on the shelf, that rusty and creaky file cabinet opened and I started to recall a review from Dougie of an Adelphi bottling of Glen Garioch. His was also an Oloroso cask. Moreover, as I recalled, Dougie’s Adelphi was roughly the same age as the bottle in my hand. I grabbed my cell phone, logged into Dramface’s search engine, and found the review. 

That rusty file cabinet is a bit archaic and needs some oil, but it did itself proud, and I grabbed the bottle. Yes, pricey, but I had saved up, I was going to maintain my enthusiasm, I was going to treat myself.