Arran 18 Year

worth the price

An amped-up version of the 10, with aromas of green apples, chocolate powder, crumbled dried shiitake mushrooms and the topping of a sticky toffee pudding. The palate is gentle and leans towards milk chocolate. The finish is ginger spice and the partly dissolved brown sugar at the bottom of your tea cup. A step up from its younger sibling but still a little muted on the palate to warrant a space in my drinks cabinet.

OK so I've now figured it out. This is a 2019 which is HEAVILY sherried cause the color is crazy dark, the bottle of course doesn't say a dang thing about it. The 2018 I gave a 2.0 is less sherry but still has plenty. Ok so is this one better? Nose - caramel, salt, tannins, oak, raisins. You can tell this is a heavy sherried whisky but and this is a neck pour but it's a bit closed off. We'll see if this opens up and I'll update. Taste - you can tell this is heavily sherried but these aren't great casks. Yeah you get some chocolate and raisin and some dark fruity esters. The malt here is actually pretty dry. Where this and all arrans seem to shine is on the finish where that island and peat and salt elements jump up and save the day. The finish is this explosive array of wonderful and then it turns AGAIN into chocolates and oak. So for science water, and the nose....just brings out oak. The flavor brings out a milk chocolate up front but kinda kills the finish....or mutes it. Water might be good if you don't like the upfront finish but otherwise pass. Ok so I do like this a hair more than the 2018 but I like more sherry on my whisky in general. 2.5 and to be honest I could go 3.0 here. It's above average for sure and I think the last bottle needs a boost on the score. You know what 2.75 Update - lets get into this. OK so I'm still not sure what these casks are doing or not. How is this so dark and not just sherry saturated to hell? The thing is the malt, that salty coastal element, etc...they're great. And the sherry is big enough to match but not even close to over powering. This is a dream in today's world of oak stuffed bad casks or sulfured egg fart bottles. The flavor on this one is light vs most bottles I give higher scores to and normally I want peat mixed in. But I'm wrong to underrate this one. I'm moving this to a 3.25. These arran 18's are stunners. They're also CRAZY easy to drink.

Sweet, the sherry really comes through. Oaky & rich. Not particularly complex & liked it best with a few dashes of water.