Glenfiddich Fire & Cane

[William]

Glenfiddich are set to launch Glenfiddich Fire & Cane Experimental Series No 4, a marriage of peated and unpeated malt whisky matured in bourbon casks which has been finished in sweet rum casks, expect a mix of campfire smoke and sweet toffee.



More info here:

http://www.scotchmaltwhisky.co.uk/glenfiddichfireandcane.htm
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There's no bad whisky. Just good whisky and better whisky.

[Bookie]

A smoky rum finished Glenfiddich, could be good, I love the Project XX so I will certainly give this a go.

[Drame Blanche]

Review on scotchwhisky.com was really poor, one on Reddit a bit more enthusiastic. Definitely one to try for yourself, sounds like a love it or hate it thing. Big fan of the XX, rum and peat, so the stars seem aligned

Hope they have it at the whisky show next weekend.

[Charlie]

It certainly appeals to me and for the price I wouldn't think you could go far wrong, cheers for the heads up William

[edinburghlandlord]

I tried it at their festival. I really enjoyed it. Didn’t find it too smoky and loved the sweetness. I did however try it after quite a few other drinks so not my most detailed Tasting. For the £43 i think its well worth a try

[Grant M]

Personally I wouldn't buy or not buy any whisky based on any reviews that have been written by the professional journalists on scotchwhisky.com , I don't rate their reviews

I cant say that I have had a bad Glenfiddich ever, some are better than others and the Glenfiddich Fire & Cane does sound very interesting to me so I will probably give it a go at some point.

[Alexppp]

[Drame Blanche]

So we have a review inception - why give a bad review if then you end up selling less of that whisky? They gave it a 79, that's like, really low. Especially for something like a swanky (and awesomely cheap) Glenfo special edition, awesomely commercial and perfect for targeting more than just old school drinkers - if we look at it with business eyes.

They have rated a whisky I just bought, Benrinnes 8 Asta Morris, with a solid 90. Asta Morris themselves told me it's not on sale in the UK, hence why I had to buy it from a Belgian shop. So they theoretically had no reason to give it a 90. Why then?

Bear in mind I'm not questioning your judgement with my words, these are legitimate questions to which I don't have an answer, as I don't know the behind the scenes at all - I know they're The Whisky Exchange guys, but that's it.

[Grant M]

As I said I personally wouldn't make the decision to buy or not buy any whisky based on any reviews that have been written by a professional journalist who has been paid to write that review, whether the review is good or bad. I will rely on other sources for this, if reviews are available.

If a journalist has been paid to write a review of any whisky which is clearly the case of the journalist who reviewed the Glenfiddich Fire & Cane on scotchwhisky.com the review should clearly state this, whether the review is good or bad.

[RN Rob]

Sadly the truly independent reviewers cannot afford to compete with The Whisky Exchanges huge budget and having spoken to a couple of people in the industry I have been told that some whisky companies are wary of sending samples to influential independent reviewers as bad reviews can have a devastating effect on sales.

Are we now in a time were the majority of whisky reviews and information is controlled by those who will profit from it?

I have lost count of the number of new whisky releases which I have googled for reviews and all I have found in the search results is reviews written by the whisky shops which are selling the whisky or by people connected/paid by those shops and these reviews are often a reworded version of the official marketing spiel and official tasting notes.

Could you imagine Amazon staff being paid to write reviews of the goods they sell? I think not, there would be outrage from Amazon customers.

[Drame Blanche]

This is an extremely interesting topic to me: I work in the game industry and games in many ways are like whisky, as in they're a very subjective matter that also is object of reviews and judgment by online authorities that often determine their success / demise. But ultimately, I might like a crap game just because it's fun for me, or don't really enjoy a massively popular *cough Fortnite cough* game.

Game reviews can be the life and death of some games, especially smaller ones, but at the same time reviews are the best way for people to know about games. And obviously all reviewers - or at least the most credited ones - are professional, paid journalist and gamers look at reviews with confidence as reference points of what the game is about.

Granted, no game company owns a game magazine and/or website, although in the past that has been a thing. In a way, the whisky world on the WWW reminds me of the game industry 15 years ago: something's there, but it's a bit of wild west with no real structure nor the tech/expertise to support really wide, scalable initiatives (only exception being possibly Glenfiddich).

Whisky is for grownups and one would argue that the real whisky fans will never give a hoot about a swanky website, but heck, if Ralfy's videos get 10k avg views and cool, editorial "whisky for beginners" videos get almost a million, that should tell distilleries (even single malt ones) and the SWA something. The day I get sick of games, I'll actually send my CV to Diageo

[Whisky Rogue]

It is quite unbelievable when you think about it, online whisky retailers such as The Whisky Exchange review the products they sell and no-one questions it.

I100% agree if a whisky review has been written by a professional journalist who has been paid for writing the review the review should clearly state this.

On the subject of the Glenfiddich Fire & Cane I will likely give it a try at some point.

[Alexppp]

Don't get me wrong, I see everyone's points about impartiality and being paid to write reviews in order to sell whisky. But that still doesn't explain why you can't trust a bad review? Why would they write it in the first place if their primary motivation is to sell it?

[davidbe]

[Archer]