Arran 10 Year Old

Arran is a young distillery, founded less than twenty years ago by Harold Currie, a former director at Chivas. Production started in 1995, Euan Mitchell is the manager. Apart from ending up in the Lochranza and Robert Burns blends, all whisky is bottled as a single malt. Let us taste the 10 Year Old first, that has already been joined by a 12 and 14 Year Old.

The nose is soft and light. Loads of grain, oats in the lead, with a little fruit. Pineapple, peach and a bit of banana. Slightly metallic, too. A tiny bit of smoke. Young and clean, but fairly flat.

The attack is slightly prickly, semi creamy, feisty on spices. Liquorice and ginger front and center. Again primarily grains, that drown out the fruit. That fruit has evolved to apples and pears.

The finish offers little new and is medium long.

This is far from bad whisky, but Arran has more interesting stuff out there already.

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