Arran 18 Year Old

Last Christmas I looked at my collection and it was mostly younger whiskies. 10 and 12 year olds and a few 15s. So I decided to add a couple of late teen whiskies to my collection and went for the Arran 18 and the Springbank 18 (which I've still to open). It was something of a risk to go for the Arran as I'd not tried any of the distilleries younger bottlings.

But who dares wins as they say as I found I loved it.

The arrival (neat) takes your breath a little with a malty solventy arrival. Then it's all about the fruit. Lots of fruit. Green apples, pears, oranges, pineapple and a taste that was bugging me for a while that I couldn't nail down I finally put my finger on today: the British sweet 'Fruit Salad'. In fact upon reflection I'd say this whisky was more about fruit favoured sweets than actual fruit.

The development has jamaican ginger cake and dried fruit. The finish is quite long and has tanins and bitter stewed apples (like the apples you put in an apple crumble before you've added the sugar).

This is nearly twice the price of the 14 year old but having not tried the younger whisky it's difficult to say whether its worth the extra cash. I suspect not as although this is a cracking whisky and quite different to most other scotchs out there it doesn't taste especially mature.

I'll have to snaffle a bottle of the 14 at some point.

Find where to buy Arran whisky