Arran Illicit Stills / Smugglers Series Vol. I

The Smugglers' Series of Arran consists – litteraly – of books: The Illicit Stills, The High Seas & The Exciseman. The PR-department did their best to bring homage to the distillers of an era gone by with these releases, from distilling in illegal stills to crossing the ferocious seas to bring their wares ashore to the exciseman they tried to evade. The first in the series – The Illicit Stills – was put together with both un peated and peated (50ppm) Arran malt, of which part matured on port pipes.

Very creamy nose on mostly citrus and apricots with a hint of overripe banana, Reine Claude plums and lemongrass. Nice touches of peat – quite delicate – giving this some old school character. That was probably planned. Salty edge. Good nose, despite the fact that it is fairly light.

The body is quite light as well, I must say. Nevertheless a bit creamy and surprisingly spicy. Sea salt and soft peat up front, followed by a mix of peppers and loads of ginger. The fruit has a hard time getting through. Some peach and lime and green grapes. No trace of the port casks, though.

The finish is medium long and spicy on some peat and lots of clear citrusy notes.

This is not bad – far from it, the nose itself is very good – but my earth did not stop spinning either. There was much ado about this release and nowadays it sells for 300 to even 400 EUR in auctions. Well, I guess it’s more a collector’s whisky than a drinker’s one.

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