Glenlivet 12 Year Licensed Dram

I finally got to open my bottle of Glenlivet's Licensed Dram, which is the spin-off expression from one of their finest releases ever, Illicit Stills. These expressions honour the history of Glenlivet, the first whisky to obtain a legal license ever. This has been bottled at 48%abv and matured in both first filled casks, Ex Bourbon and sherry. On the nose, it starts with christmas cake, and yeast. Spongy cake. Red apples with dulce de leche; pecan pie and hot honey. Cough syrup. After letting it breath it gave me more apples and honey, but also toffee & butterscotch. Some slight ashiness on the nose. On the palate, this is truly enjoyable. Dulce de leche for a second and then: kaboom! An explosion of spices. Dulce de leche with red apples. Cinnamon, cough syrup, hot honey. Very spicy. Delicious. Aftertaste feels vintage. Tobacco, peat, burnt hay and ashes. Great stuff. Overall, this is a very enjoyable, elegant dram, with lots of character. It is as good as the Illicit Stills one, and you can see that Glenlivet picked great casks for this expressions, which i appreciate since this releases are not expensive. Great job here, my score for them is 91 over 100.

This Glenlivet Licenced Dram is a very good and high quality whisky. It is like the old faithful Bunna 12 that has been finished in a sherry cask. This is even better than the wonderful Illicit Still bottling.

Amazing to see what Glenlivet can do with 48%. If they’d also leave it unchillfiltered and natural color, this would be even better

A good trip back in time to old distilling methods. Justifiably harsh.

Sweet, peach, cinnamon, a little spicy. Great thing 48%. I like it

Better than OG jura, pairs well with pickled onion monster munch