Clynelish 14 Year – bottled in 2017

CLYNELISH 14 YEAR
Bottled July 20, 2017

MASH BILL – 100% malted barley

PROOF – 92

AGE – 14 years

DISTILLERY – Clynelish

PRICE – $96

WORTH BUYING? – Yes

Why highlight the bottling year? Because I’ve been interested in Clynelish 14 Year for a while. But in looking up various reviews, I noted some commentators tasting a difference having settled in right around the early 2020s or so. Clynelish is known for a waxy texture and taste, and that seemed to have thinned. It was suspected that either their chill filtering had increased or additional color was getting added. Maybe the minimum age in the blend had been moved closer to 14 years. Maybe the stills got an extra thorough cleaning. We can never know the reasons for these things, or if it’s no more than a rumor based on smoke with no discernible fire.

I tried a pour of Clynelish 14 at a bar in New York earlier this year. But the bar’s atmosphere was overwhelmingly, noisily trashy, and I really couldn’t hone in on the whisky itself. That night it tasted like cheap peppery scotch. Not a good intro.

So when I found this bottle from 2017 at a local corner store, with a thin cap of dust knitted atop its slightly faded tube, I happily took it home. Ralfy once gave a 2017 bottle very high marks, so, my chances were good!

And now here we are, one full month after uncorking and five pours into the bottle. These brief notes were taken using a traditional Glencairn.

COLOR – vibrant straw and honey yellows, light and clear enough to reflect the colors outside the glass

NOSE – honey, salt, lemon, honeydew melon, the whole mango, dry slate stone, dry beach wood, sand

TASTE – tangy, tart, sweet, syrupy, then the famous waxiness arrives in both taste and texture, along with drizzly vanilla caramel, grilled mango, more lemon, salt, and subtle bitter beach wood tannin

FINISH – salt, lemon, sand, beach wood tannin, faint caramel and cream, a fine warmth wrapped around it all

OVERALL – When the bartenders in the Edinburgh pubs would ask me “smokey or sweet,” this is exactly what I would imagine the latter would taste like, a solid easy-to-like sweet scotch with a bit of surly grit to it

I have been enjoying this bottle since cracking it open. That experience in New York simply doesn’t count. And anyway it was undoubtedly a more recent bottle. I don’t have a 2024 bottle on hand to compare to this 2017 outing. The whisky geek in me would love to do a generational side-by-side, of course. But at present my only option is the glass in my hand. And it’s good.

What I appreciate most about this Clynelish 14 Year is the combination of texture, sweet notes, and elemental notes. Without the famous “waxy” thing planted in my head, relying entirely on my own sense memory I’d likely have described the texture as a viscous syrupiness. But “waxy” does make sense here. The sweet notes are classic scotch tropical fruit, melon, and honey. And then those maritime elemental notes of beach wood, sand, and salt add that surliness to the sweet, conjuring images of craggy shorelines and rough pebbly sand.

Since cracking this 2017 release, I came across a 2015 release at a different corner store. Of course I snapped it up. Haunt your corner stores, American scotch fans. At this point they’ve pretty much been picked clean for bourbon. But a careful perusal of those dusty scotch tubes may reveal hidden treasures.

I’ve always sworn by independent bottlers for gathering my scotch supply at better prices for better ages and cask strength, etcetera. But the occasional mainstream release, from before the whisk(e)y boom fully boomed in the late-2000-teens, can be utterly delightful. This 2017 Clynelish 14 Year is a fantastic example.

Cheers!