Jose-Massu-Espinel
Arran Royal Island 30 Year Old
Blended — Islands, Scotland
Reviewed
September 21, 2022 (edited September 27, 2022)
Well, this one is a true rarity. Arran Royal Island is a 30yo expression bottled by Arran Distillers, which was founded in 1995, so the math does not add up. The true thing here, is that new distilleries tend to buy stock from other whisky makers, to bottle special editions to fund the investment of their new premises.
This is the case of this Blended whisky, aged for 30 years in what i believe are sherry casks, since most of the labeling is unreadable to me, since this was released exclusively for Taiwan Markets.
Bottled at 40%abv, Tawny color.
On the nose, Super dried oranges, coffee; cherries and maple syrup. Caramelized apple and cinnamon. Incredible aroma, almost perfect score.
On the palate, it was very fruity. Oranges, milk, red fruits: strawberries. More sips gave me red apples, caramel and a slight saltiness.
Aftertaste is so sweet it can be cloying. Milk and sugar; Moka. Very elegant, and long. Tiramisu dessert and a hint of salt.
Overall, this was a very nice, elegant, fancy whisky. For a blend, you never ever feel the grain part of it, and the fruitiness and sweetness of it is really great. A wonderful, yet very rare expression, my score for it is 90 over 100.
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Yes, there's no Arran in this, it's a blend containing Islay and Highland malts. I thought itwas a blended malt rather than a blended scotch, but I don't know for sure. It was a limited release and there were 17 and 21 year old versions as well.
The math might add up by the time you have a half bottle of this down you 😅