Glendronach is a Speyside whiskey, and I have generally thought highly of those that I tried. Since I bought the Glendronach 12 first, and it did not make an impression on me, positive or negative. However, when I tried the Glendronach 15, I initially did not like it, and much preferred the Glendronach 12, especially at 2/3 the price of the 15.
But, a few weeks later, as I hadn't enjoyed the Glendronach 15, there was pretty much a full bottle of it, while my other bottles were getting low. I couldn't waste a full bottle of single malt! So I tried it again. Once again, I found it quite strong, and the alcohol overpowered the flavour. So I decided to do something I had not done - I cut it a little with water. What a difference. When cut with water, the alcohol backed off, and gave rise to a nicely balanced slightly sweet flavour. I had a few drams, and my opinion of the 15 was much improved. It was a sweet, and was a nice Speyside.
So, I decided to try the slightly cut 15 against the 12. I tried one, then the other, and then changed the order of one against the other. I still found them hard to differentiate, but the 12 was slightly more sharp.
So the next decision was to cut the 12 ever so slightly. Although the 15 required more water than the 12, once both had a little water, they became much more difficult to distinguish. The 15 seems to have more flavour, but both are more sweet than salty. I would not rank this as high as any of the aberlours, but both were, when cut slightly with water, a decent dram in the end.
EDIT August 2014. - Had a sprinkle left of each of these so I decided to do one last compare. They still taste fairly similar, nice sweet sherry taste with little to differentiate the 12 from the 15, although the 15 is slightly smoother. If you want a good sherry kick, these both have it. I like the taste of both of these.
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