recommend a sherry cask scotch?

Hi @scotchrookie and welcome to connosr!

The first quite familiar bottles that come in mind are Macallan 10yo Sherry, Dalmore 12yo, Aberlour 10yo or on the strong side Aberlour A'bunadh. Ofc there are great Glenfarclas which are well known for sherried whisky. Did you already try cask strength whisky? Did you enjoy it or is it too 'heavy'?

For further research I give you some stuff to read because we already had some topics like this one:

connosr.com/wall/discussion/…

connosr.com/wall/discussion/…

connosr.com/wall/discussion/…

connosr.com/wall/discussion/…

Greetings

My recommendation: Glenfarclas 15 Year Old. Lots of sweet sherry and affordable.

Another I find quite similar to that: BenRiach Sherry Wood 12

Macallan 12 sherry is one of my personal favorites for sherry scotches

@scotchrookie Welcome to this site I hope you will be able to find answers to your questions, That said I would have to second the advice of @Wills and @Nolinske the Aberlour ranges and Macallan range of whisky expressions will be most likely to both fit your budget and availability concerns. Hope this was helpful. :)

I would try Macallan 12 or Glendronach 12, whichever is available/affordable in your area. These are both 100% sherry-cask matured (I think that is true of the Glendronach 12...) rather than finished in sherry, so it'll give you another reference point.

Dalmore 12 would be a super-safe choice; won't open any new doors for you and so I wouldn't bother.

My only experience with Glenfarclas is the 10 y.o. which was disappointing compared to something like Macallan 12, but if you want to spend more I keep hearing good things about the 15 as @Reinhard suggests.

For a bit of a different angle on this, consider Highland Park 12. It's sherry-cask matured (though not a "sherry-bomb" like Macallan or Glendronach), and it'll also introduce you to peat in a gentle and delicious way!

I am wondering how easily you still have access to Macallan Sherry Oak bottles? Here in Switzerland they are starting to get rare and therefore more and more expensive. I think it is a shame that MAcallan stopped these fabulous bottlings. So try one, if you still have the chance. Their new bottlings (i had Amber and Gold) are not bad as well. I would suggest the Glendronach Revival or the Glendronach Octarin as reasonably priced sherry whiskies. If you can get your hands on a bottle of Glendronach Cask Strength then grab it. What a wonderful whisky.

That Glendronach 12YO is very nice, and affordable. Got it for just under 50 in the US. It is very chocolaty and candy like to my tastes. On the more expensive and harder to find end of things, look for the Glenmorangie Sonnalta PX. If you liked their Lasanta, you'll love this.

thanks everyone for the helpful feedback and for welcoming me. @wills i figured topic had been covered before, but i couldn't figure out the right search to get to them. What is "cask strength" whiskey? Thanks in advance! @PMessinger I have the Aberlour Abundah (sp?) but it's way to strong and "burny" for me. @valuewhiskey what's the difference between sherry-cask matured and finished in sherry? Not the same thing? @mammon I'm in the Midwest USA, no real good access but ill be heading to New York within a month, hope to pick up a couple of recommended bottles.

@scotchrookie, if you post more location and other information about yourself on your profile page, you may well attract buddies geographically nearby. They can help orient you to the local whisky opportunities, stores, bars, etc. If you are a "rookie" there is nothing better than getting a broad experience, and face to face sharing of whiskies with others is one of the best ways to do that.

@Mammon ofc you are right, the Macallan Sherry Oak isn't a good hint because of the bad availability these days. I still have a rest of my bottle and was enjoying it. But there are lots of other great sherried entry malts. Would love to taste some spirits from the Glendronach range (Revival hmm) by myself.

@scotchrookie Cask Strength means it is undiluted from the cask. Like the A'bunadh you mentioned. If it's to strong for your taste it is no pitty to dilute it with water (no ice!). It's a big difference to buying diluted whisky (say 40% ABV) and get a 60% ABV whisky and cut it to 40% by yourself. You open the whisky by doing so, which offers a great spectrum of flavors.

Btw some whisky is finished in ex-sherry casks (typically just some month after it was maturing in ex-bourbon casks for several years) and more rare you can get sherry matured whisky. They were maturing the entire time in ex-sherry casks. It makes also a difference if the casks were first fill or refill and so on.

And for the searching, just type sherry in the search window, it's not magic ;)

@Wills ahhh, i had done that, but saw bottles come up, and didn't scroll down. Thanks!

BTW, doing a quick and dirty count throughout forum, consensus top 3 were Macallan 10/12, Glenfarclas 12/15/105, and GlenDronach 12. Thanks to all, this was exactly what i was looking for, I hope to try all of these over the next year.

@scotchrookie And don't forget to try other whiskies, there are lots of different kinds :D

If you want to try many, some shops offer samples of 5 or 10 cl

@scotchrookie: Last night I had a medium sized dram of Aberlour a'bunadh batch #44 and it was the finest 'drop' I've had in a long time! It had everything that I like, in abundance, all in the right places with an almost unbelievable depth - I looked at the glass and thought, 'that contains everything I know and love about Whisky'.

It does need to be open for a while: In a large decanter for a couple of months will maximize your enjoyment and a couple of small teaspoons of a good quality soft water in a good sized dram will open up the flavor profile, enormously! This may sound a bit of a rigmarole; it isn't! Put the a'bunadh in a large decanter, (or equivalent i.e. a liter bot. or in 2x 500ml. etc.) with a large air space, push it to the back of your 'dark, cool space', and give it a couple of months to open up. This is not mandatory but if you would like to see a'bunadh in all its' majesty, this is what you do.

In the meantime, have a go at a Glenmorangie 'Lasanta'; the version currently available here in Aust. is magnificent with a few drops of your soft water.

Good Luck.

Just wanted to add my support for the Glenfarclas. I'm a big fan of the 17 year, and I'd say it's a good value for the money.

For a light sherry influence and no big alcohol punch you might consider Glengoyne 10. Another favorite of mine, and even more reasonably priced, is Strathisla 12.

Welcome aboard. Enjoy the ride.

Let's not forget BLADNOCH, under the helm of Raymond Armstrong. If you live (or have friends) somewhere that can get online orders from UK (master of Malt, thewhiskyexchange.com), or maybe even direct from the distillery, you can get the 10 year sherry cask matured bottled at 55 percent! I can personally vouch for the 10 year, and now the 11 year is out and I am waiting with anticipation to open it.

There's quite a range of flavours within the sherried whiskies. Here's my take. Keep in mind this list is always up for revision, as there's TONS of stuff I still haven't tried. But based on what I have tried, my recommendations would be as follows:

Best cask strength: Aberlour A'bunadh OR Kavalan Soloist Sherry Best spiced: Benriach 12 yr Sherry Wood Best dessert dram: Benriach 15 yr PX Best balanced: Glenfarclas 15 yr Best peated: Ardbeg Uigeadail

Almost all of these are great sherry bombs with very different profiles, and they're all quite affordable. Hope this helps!

I know this thread is a bit old, but for what it's worth, you should take a sip of Clynelish 14. I don't remember if it is finished or matured in Sherry casks (it's one or the other). But it is very nice. My fav. is MacCallan's 18yr. It's a bit expensive, but I got to have some for a special occasion last month and it was just amazing. MacCallan's 12 yr is my goto though (we don't seem to have any problems getting it around here in NJ USA). It's always on the shelf at my spot. I hadn't heard of them not bottling their sherry cask anymore. Just bought a bottle in May of 12yr for $67 US (about the same over the past 5 years).

I like glendronach 15yo revival, it's very rich and full of sherry lushness! and I don't go for Sherry matured that often, but if I do I like this one alot. The problem is that these expression are Getting expensive maybe the 12yo might be good as we'll for less. Macallan 18 is good but To much cash in my opinion. Like others here, I also recommend glenfarclas most of there stuff Is bang for the buck.

@luckyshot Agree with you on the Glendronach 15 yr - great stuff!

@scotchrookie I would say #1. Recommendation would be Glenfarclas 15. I also agree with @reinhard about the BenRiach. The sherry wood 15 is truly excellent. Are you UK based?

LOL, you've just opened quite a flood gate.

I like Macallan Cask Strength. It's like desert in a glass. I like it more than A'bunadh. Glendronach has some killer sherry bombs. The 17 years are supposed to be really good. I have one that I haven't opened yet.