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We sell gift vouchers - for more details call us on 0115 911 0555 or email us at eann@gauntleys.com
Region: Islands (Arran)
Owner: Isle of Arran Distillers
Founded: 1993
It’s funny to think, that when I started in the industry, back at the turn of the new millennium, Arran was the ‘new kid on the block’. I can’t remember the first bottling of theirs I tasted, but they do not feature below as those notes have been lost in the mist of time, but I vividly remember that it was exceptionally fruity and tropical, which it still is today, and it was unlike any other whisky I had ever tasted, at the time. For a distillery that produces a lovely, estery spirit you would have expected a long fermentation of the wort, although at Arran, the fermentation time is a relatively average 60 to 65 hours, so when James MacTaggart, the current distillery manager says that he runs those pair of fairly small still very slowly and generate a large amount of reflux I definitely believe him.
Although the spirit still is fairly small, being charged to only 4,800 litres, they have long, slender necks and long, thin slightly elevated lyne arms, which is what extracts the intense tropical and citric esters from the spirit.
This intense, tropical character has always been evident in the distilleries flagship bottling, the 10 year old and up until fairly recently I had assumed that the spirit in that bottle had been matured in 100% American oak, but I was told by a well informed source that the 10 year old had up to 30% ex-Sherry matured spirit in the blend. To say that I was amazed was an understatement, I mean I had never picked up an iota of sherry character in the 10 year old, which means that I’m either a rubbish taster or the sherry butts that were being used were ‘well used’.
The distillery has decided to embrace the ‘No Age Statement’ bottling. No, not every bottling in the range has dropped its age statement, just the new ‘entry level’ bottling called Arran Barrel Reserve. Now, this is a 100% American oak aged bottling and although the spirit is somewhere between 6 and 8 years old it is absolutely superb. It really displays all that lovely estery Arran character superbly, but your probably thinking, why introduce such a bottling? The reason for that, I believe is down to stock levels. Many distilleries over the years go through phases of lightly production or no production at all, which eventually leads to gaps in stocks, which in turn means that it doesn’t physically have enough casks of, say, 14 year old casks to continue with that as a part of its core range. This is exactly what has happened at Arran.
Now, you might think that is a little bit odd as the distillery has been in production for every day since it first began distilling in 1995, so how come, you ask has it got gaps in its inventory. The simple answer is that back in the late 1990’s it sold off too many casks.
As we all know, being a distillery owner means that that you have to be proficient in the use of the crystal ball and attempting to predict the demand on one’s whisky in say, 10 or 20 years time is virtually impossible. So basically, Arran messed up and this has meant that they have has to pull the 14 year old expression from their core range.
In some way, you could say that isn’t the end of the world, but when a distillery has carefully designed its range, like Arran according to flavour profile, it can make the range seem a bit lop sided. For example, if we assume that the 10 year old was a 70/ 30 Bourbon/ Sherry vatting, then the 14 year old was around 50/50 and the 18 year old 100% ex-sherry then, flavour wise there is a big jump in style from the 10 to the 18 year old. So, this is where Jimmy MacT has been clever. He has created a new starting point for the range with the Barrel reserve and has upped the sherry component of the 10 year old to sort of fill the stylistic gap to the 18 year old. Now, having tasted the new 10 year old, it definitely has a good degree of sherry character, and I would say that, a) It is probably around 40% and b) Has used a greater proportion of first fill butts or more active refill butts. Quelle Horreur, you may well exclaim! He’s messed with the sanctity of the 10 year old! And to be fair, I’m with you on that thought, but, damn, the Barrel Reserve is so good I’m more than happy to forgive Jimmy MacT for this!
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