Glenfiddich “Our American Oak” 12-Years

The Glenfiddich 12 Year Old "Yellow"

Barcode:                5010327399614

Price:                      In Israel: Widely available at 170-190 Shekels (about £38).

                                Price in the UK: £50, available from “Master of Malt”.

UPDATE: 21st March 2024: Prices have now risen to 200 Shekels or more.

Age Statement:     12 Years Old.

Bottling Strength: 40% abv.

Chill Filtration:     Yes.

Colour Added:      If they have done, then it’s very little.

Maturation Type: Aged entirely in Ex-Bourbon American Oak barrels,

                                as stated on the label.

Kashrus:                 No Kashrus issues.

                                Certification by the Manchester Beth Din Mehadrin

                                (AKO Member).

Introduction

The story of the creation of this unique Glenfiddich 12 Kosher version goes back many years. Glenfiddich already has an extensive range of kosher products but this has always excluded their most popular Single Malt, the classic and historic Glenfiddich 12.

Independent family-owned William Grant & Sons, established in 1887, own Glenfiddich, Balvenie, Alisa Bay and Kininvie Scottish distilleries. They also own famous brands such as “Grant’s Blended Scotch Whisky” and the popular “Monkey Shoulder” Premium Blended Malt Scotch Whisky (although I prefer the term “Malt Blend” for a marriage of two or more Malt whiskies from different distilleries).

Since the early 2000s William Grant & Sons has had an exclusive contract with the Manchester Beth Din to certify all of their products which meet the organisation’s Kashrus standards. These include:

• Alisa Bay 1.2 Sweet Smoke
• Balvenie 12 YO Single Barrel First-Fill
• Balvenie 14-Year-Old Peat Week
• Balvenie 25 YO Single Barrel Traditional Oak
• Glenfiddich 14-Year-Old "Our Bourbon Barrel Reserve"
• Glenfiddich 14-Year-Old Rich Oak (Discontinued)
• Glenfiddich 26-Year-Old "Excellence"
• Glenfiddich IPA Experiment (IPA Cask)
• Glenfiddich Fire & Cane Experimental Series #4

(If any of you are wondering why the Balvenie 14 Caribbean Cask is not on this list, the first edition was in fact certified as kosher as it was matured with genuine Caribbean Ex-Rum American Oak barrels. Subsequent editions however, were matured in various types of Refill casks which have been re-seasoned with Rum at the cooperage in Glenfiddich in Scotland. As I understand it, William Grant told the Manchester Beth Din that they could not guarantee that all these re-seasoned casks would be exclusively Ex-Bourbon barrels. That perhaps at least some of them could be Ex-Sherry casks. Therefore, official certification was removed. Unfortunately, the Israeli importers continued (purely by mistake, I’m sure), to print the Manchester kosher certification on their Hebrew import stickers for every batch, for years, until I reported this to the Manchester Beth Din).

The Glenfiddich 12

It has always been a problem that William Grant & Sons was unable to get kashrus certification for The Glenfiddich 12. This truly historic single malt has the accolade of being the world’s first globally available Single Malt Scotch Whisky, which exploded onto the market in 1963 and created a whole new whisky category. Space now had to be made on the shelf for “Single Malts”, alongside the ubiquitous Blended Scotch Whisky.

Even today, The Glenfiddich 12 is arguably still the most instantly recognisable Single Malt whisky in the world by its iconic three-sided green bottle and stag head emblem. Furthermore, despite stiff competition from its nearest rival, The Glenlivet 12, it is still the world’s top selling Single Malt Whisky with over 9 million bottles sold around the globe per annum.

Kashrus Problem

The classic Glenfiddich 12-Year-Old cannot get certification as its recipe consists of a vatting of mainly Ex-Bourbon barrel matured spirit but also spirit matured in Ex-Sherry casks (estimated by some to be between 30% to 40% of the total marriage). This vatting of Ex-Bourbon and [mainly Refill] Ex-Sherry casks is proudly stated both on the box and label.

In simple terms, any whisky expression where the producers state on the label that it was matured even partially in non-kosher wine/sherry casks, will render it prohibited from receiving kosher certification from any AKO (Association of Kashrus Organisations) member, which the Manchester Beth Din is a member of.

Despite this fact, you will still see The Glenfiddich 12 in its green box sitting not only on the shelves of every pub and bar all around the world, but also (due mostly to ignorance),  in most kosher certified Simcha halls.

A Kosher Edition?

On the left is the standard Green 12. On the right, the Special Israeli Edition

A solution to this problem was proposed back in 2014 by the Manchester Beth Din who approached William Grant with the idea of producing a special “Kosher” edition of the 12-Year-Old.

I wrote an article about this on my blog back in 2016. See here:

https://rebmordechaireviews.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-mystery-of-special-israeli.html

However, just to summarise the story, at the initial suggestion (I believe) of the Israeli importers, the Manchester Beth Din commissioned a Genfiddich-12 edition project which would consist of 100% Ex-Bourbon barrel maturation (and therefore have no kashrus issues).

However, when the time came to begin vatting the barrels assigned for this bottling, after sampling, the Master Blender at Glenfiddich at the time, was not happy with the result. This Ex-Bourbon only expression obviously did not taste even similar to the standard 12-Year-Old and he thought that it might cause damage to the Glenfiddich 12’s image. He thereupon decided to add what was in his estimation, just a small amount of ex-sherry matured whisky to the final bottling. Not enough, he thought, to make any difference to the project but just enough so that the classic flavour character profile was maintained. They then proceeded to bottle this special “kosher” edition, paid for by the Israeli importers.

When the Manchester Beth Din were informed of William Grant's last minute decision to add a small amount of whisky matured in Ex-Sherry casks, they withdrew their agreement to certify the product. Nevertheless, the Israeli importers shipped them to Israel and they were on sale here from 2015 until stocks ran out around 2017. These bottles came in the exact same bottle, canister design and colour, and were obviously indistinguishable from the standard 12-Year-Old expression except for one difference. Instead of stating “matured in our finest Oloroso Sherry and Bourbon casks”, it simply stated “matured in our finest Bourbon casks”.

This led to a flood of questions landing in my inbox from Orthodox Jews, asking if this was a special kosher batch, prompting the investigation which I have just described above.

Very Disappointed

Most of the information that I have accumulated, came from the then William Grant Middle East ambassador back in 2017. However, when I came to write this article about this genuine Kosher Glenfiddich 12 (in the yellow canister), I reached out to both William Grant as well as to the Manchester Beth Din to gain more insight into how this product came about, telling them how much I loved the whisky and that I was going to be writing a positive piece on it.

That was all of four months ago and have heard nothing from William Grant & Sons and a short reply from the MBD, informing me that everyone there was very busy with various projects and that there was no one available to talk to me.

A few days before I uploaded this review, I reached out to Willian Grant again and asked them for any marketing information they could give me, but answer came there none.

Product Availability

As far as I understand, this second (and successful) attempt at a kosher Glenfiddich 12 was the brainchild of the Israeli importer, “HaKerem Mashkaot” in coordination with the Manchester Beth Din. Up until now it has been an Israeli market exclusive and indeed, some opportunists have been offering these budget level bottles in the UK at, would you believe it, as much as £200!

Baruch Hashem, it is now available in the UK through “Master Of Malt” online store at a very reasonable £50. An email from MofM confirmed that they had re-imported this Kosher edition from their "International supplier", so this did not come directly from their UK William Grant supplier. (I find this re-importing back to the UK quite amusing).

The Review

Packaging

"Our Kosher American Oak 12"

Considering that this is the kosher alternative to the classic Glenfiddich 12, the packaging is excellent. It looks like a typical Glenfiddich official bottling yet with its bright yellow colour canister and label, it is sufficiently different to the original that the two products will not be confused. Kol HaKavod (well done) to the design team for this.

Appearance

Unlike the standard E150a coloured original, this Glenfiddich 12 has lovely bright sunshine yellow colour which is almost the same colour as the package colour.

I have to say that it looks almost natural. If there is any E150a then it’s very little, just enough to ensure a more or less consistent colour from batch to batch.

You can tell that it’s chill filtered as when you swirl the liquid around in the glass and then stop, the liquid drops down into the glass almost immediately. There are very little whisky tears, if at all.

On the Nose

Apple Brandy, New Furniture. Furniture Wood Varnish, Plump Sultanas in Sticky Honey. Loads of sweet honey. Apple Orchard. New chair Cushion. New material / fabric.

Tasting

Sweet apples and custard. Honey and Custard tarts. Buttery. Melted butter and honey on toast. Walkers Shortcake with honey on top. Medium Light. Floral, yellow fruity and honey sweet.

Finish

Honey lozenges. Vanilla shortcake on the Medium short refreshing finish.

Simply Delicious. Refined. Fresh, tangy and chewy.

Conclusion

As those of you who are regular readers of my blog will know, I am always going on about chill-filtration and how it strips the whisky of some 25-30% of the whisky. I also regularly complain about expressions which have been watered down and are bottled at the minimum legal abv of 40%, which also strips the whisky of much of its natural flavour.

However, I do recognise that there is a large casual whisky drinking market out there who won’t appreciate the extra price hike which bottling at 46% abv or more will entail and will want to pour this into a glass straight from the bottle without worrying about watering it down. Moreover, they won’t understand or care much about whether the single malt has been chill-filtered or not. In fact, seeing the whisky go even slightly misty or cloudy on a cold day or when they add water or even ice to the glass, might even put them off.

So, with this in mind and the fact that this Glenfiddich 12 "Yellow" is aimed squarely at the same budget Glenfiddich 12 “Green”, as well as the Glenmorangie 10 and Glen Moray 12 market, it makes perfect sense to me to present this kosher edition at the same approachable 40% abv level.

After all, this Glenfiddich 12 “Yellow” will be drunk at simchas like Shul Kiddushim, Chasunas, Bar Mitzvahs etc, where they want the whisky to be immediately drinkable and in all likelihood will be drunk in disposable plastic “grape juice” glasses to boot.

Could it do with adding water? I think it does improve the flavour adding a few tiny drops of water, but it’s more than appetising and tasty without.

Glenfiddich, as well as The Glenlivet, Tomintoul and Auchentoshan, are all examples of distilleries which almost all whisky enthusiasts ignore, due to the fact that they aim their products at the budget, low-end, casual drinker sector where integrity compromises are inevitable. So, it’s not a Single Malt which I’d recommend to someone who was trying to seriously get into Single Malts. (Having said this, they could do a lot worse).

I do however, wholeheartedly recommended the Glenfiddich 12 “Yellow” for anyone holding a simcha or shul kiddush. It’s simple, but delicious stuff at any time, at the right price and with the right presentation. I’d say it’s the perfect Kiddush dram and I commend William Grant for bringing this out (even though they ignored all my emails).