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Glenfiddich 50 Year Old At Heritage Lounge Whisky Bar

Class cannot be derived from objects. It is now bestowed upon a person wearing a fancy watch or driving a fast car. It is a way of being, a state of mind, expressed through actions. Pointing towards the bottle of Glenfiddich 50 Year Old whisky, sitting in moody light on the top shelf – that’s class.

That’s making a deliberate decision to associate exclusively with the best in the business. It’s a statement that you are setting the Parramatta bar high; further, that to have the bar lower would be unthinkable. Yet the fine whisky connoisseur who values his experience highly enough to place it on the top shelf never cared about what others thought. That is their business. His is to enjoy a fine glass of Scotch Whisky at the most esteemed whisky bar, poured with a tilt of the wrist to grace a cut-glass tumbler.

The opening number with Heritage Lounge’s exclusive whisky menu, The Vault, this Glenfiddich 50 Year Old is not an overnight sensation, a mushroom popped up in the woods. It is an ode to the character that only time can bestow, year on year in gradual, accumulative sophistication. This is no spritely firecracker out to make a point; rather, the smooth and mellow flavours demonstrate a level of sophistication that keeps the cards close to the chest, while remaining generous and giving somehow.

The finish tells of the exquisite cask selection from malt master Brian Kinsman. This is a triumvirate whisky distilled across three casks. Two of these (from 1955 and 1957) having spent 50 years in American Oak barrels. The other was transferred into a new cask in its last 10 years of distillation, gifting it with the sweetness of fresh fruit, the spice of a younger oak. Finally, under the expert oversight of Kinsman, the three were brought together in European Oak.

On the nose, the Glenfiddich is balanced, airy. There’s traces of fruit and botanicals including hibiscus, petal and spring blossoms, like a waft of air in September; tempered, as it were, by the leathery, toasted almond character hustled in by the oak. A light syrupy sweetness first floods the lips and the tip of the tongue, before the deeper layers emerge – oak tannin, cinnamon, nutmeg. The dry oak note lingers like a gong, gradually transitioning to a just-so sweetness.

For Heritage Lounge, there was no question when it came to obtaining a bottle from the third vatting of the elite Glenfiddich 50 Year Old. This bottle of ours was one of only 50 released in 2018. Though class does not seek to be recognised, it still deserves reward. To choose to partake of one of only 500 bottles in existence is to merit recognition at your local Parramatta bar and gain status in the Sydney nightlife scene.

Heritage Lounge cocktail bar will bestow anybody who experiences the 50 Year Old for themselves a personalised bottle of Glenfiddich 21 Year Old, a hand-rolled Romeo Y Julieta Churchills Anejados Cuban cigar that has aged for 15 years, and a personalised William Grant and Sons scroll that authenticates your experience of the Glenfiddich 50 Year Old at Heritage Lounge.

Will you be the one?