The Arran Malt Aged 10 Years Single Malt Scotch Whisky, 700ml

Product Information

This bottling was one of 253 bottles from a 2005 distillation from barley at about 14 ppm, matured in first fill bourbon casks and bottled in 2009 at 57.

With Christmas approaching, we got in touch our whisky Club Members to ask them to share their recommendations on the best budget whiskies available today.It could take quite a bit of water, as you’d expect, bringing out spiky wood, sour Fruit Salad chews, spicy lemons and still more boozy heat. However, something that I’d forgotten was that I’d signed up to do a blending class and tasting with Richard at Milroy’s a week later. To taste it’s thick and syrupy, with red grapes, spicy wood and a chunk of tannin, rolling towards a buttery apple finish. The initial rush of rich vanilla sweetness gives way to a touch of cinnamon which adds a spicy edge to the soft and sweet texture.

They will shortly be releasing their oldest regular production whisky – a 14 year old which we couldn’t try as it was still in the cask finishing its maturation. It’s bottled at 46% as well and made up of whisky from a batch of 10 second fill sherry butts, producing about 6000 bottles of which 600 are allocated for sale in the UK. My Mate Nick’s Homebrew: Mr Martin, cow-orker and ginger bearded buddy extraordinaire, has recently started brewing and after discussing what he was doing to make his beer presented me with one of his first batch of bottles. Being so young a distillery it’s quite difficult to have a wide range of whiskies at traditional ages. To taste it had the traditional Arran burst of icing sugar followed by wood polish, prickly spice, chocolate orange and vanilla.

This is one of the best value whiskies on our list; a complex, smoky, spicy dram that’s more tasty than testing. Picking a region to explore is a good place to start, although there can be a considerable overlap of the styles of whisky among each of the distillers. There’s ginger, black pepper and star anise, as well as background notes of caramel and toffee, a dried orange finish and some mellow smoke.