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Release Notes
The brand new Arran Barrel Reserve is a fresh, light and elegant no-age-statement Single Malt Single Barrel Scotch Whisky. It is 100% matured in Bourbon Barrels and is going to become your go-to dram for every occasion - to be served neat, with ice or in a longer drink or cocktail.
Arran
3rd Party Tasting Notes
Nose: Delicate apples and pears
Palate: Beautifully balanced citrus fruit and light vanilla sweetness with a burst of apple and delicate marine notes.
Finish: Sweetness, Spice, Charred Oak, Citrus, Vanilla.
Palate: Beautifully balanced citrus fruit and light vanilla sweetness with a burst of apple and delicate marine notes.
Finish: Sweetness, Spice, Charred Oak, Citrus, Vanilla.
Arran
The Distillery: Arran
| Established: 1993 |
| Silent since: False |
| Address: Lochranza, Isle of Arran, Argyll, KA27 8HJ, Scotland |
| → website |
2008 - The logo of the Arran distillery was restyled.
A decade after being opened in 1995, a few different expressions of Arran became available to the public around 2005. For many years the only widely available expression has been the standard NAS version (no age statement), released for the first time in 1998.
The only potentially disturbing element in Arran"s success story is the relatively large quantity of single malt and blended whisky that has already been bottled and sold at a relatively young age. The Arran distillery has a substantial production capacity of circa 750,000 litres per year, but they presently only produce a fraction of that; 125,000 litres. Will there be enough casks left by the time the spirit reaches its prime in a few years time to satisfy demand? What"s more, were they able to secure enough decent casks in the first place? Judging from the wide variety of different finishes that Arran distillery has released, the results of maturation in their regular (bourbon?) casks often required further "tweaking" before the Arran whisky was deemed suitable for mass consumption. Well, I"m no traditionalist, and I don"t mind unconventional measures if they get results...
In the new Millenium
And this time I could actually notice notable improvement. A score of 67 points still isn"t an astronomical score by any stretch of the imagination, but it"s the section of my Hit List where I"m starting to have some genuine fun. I won"t be running to the liquor store the next time Arran releases another new bottling, but if they were smart enough to save up enough of the first casks (and I suspect they were) the future looks quite bright indeed for Arran. Their regular offerings at circa 10 years old can already compete with established brands.
Things started to look really sunny when Arran entered the Awards in 2004. They submitted two "single cask" bottlings that both earned a bronze medal. I wouldn"t be surprised if Arran came up with a really interesting whisky in just three or four years time. By the way, their Lochranza blend isn"t half bad either; I can"t say I really "love" it (50 points), but I like it better than many mainstream blends like J&B and William Lawson"s, that much is certain. And pretty good value too here in Holland.
For almost a decade, Arran kept releasing fresh batches of this bottling, and because it doesn"t have an age statement you could never know for certain if a bottle you bought in 2002 contained malt whisky that was three or seven years old. When I tried my first one in 1998 I was pleasantly surprised. My score of 61 points was actually pretty good for a 3yo whisky. I"m happy to report that the malt whisky from Arran has improved considerably since then.
Along the way Arran released some "special" bottlings like the "Painters" series and the "Robert Burns" shown below, but the lack of any further information on the actual age of these bottles kept me from investing much money in them. The fact that they demanded handsome ransoms for these "special" bottlings that couldn"t have been that old (or good) has tempered my enthusiasm for this distillery for a while, but by 2003 the "Non-Chillfiltered" bottling appeared.
2003 - Arran released the Arran "Non Chill Filtered"; as far as I"m concerned the first really "mature" Arran. They also released their first double matured whisky - a Calvados Finish. This was the first in a long range of different finishes, including Marsala, Champagne, Port, Bordeaux, Chareau Margaux, Tokaji, Rum, Cognac, Cream sherry, Fino sherry, Amarone, Fontalloro, Lepanto PX Brandy, Moscatel de Setubal, Montepulciano d"Abruzzo Mascianelli, Pineau de Charentes, Pineau de Charentes, Sassicaia, St. Emillion Chateau Fonplegade, etc. In recent years more and more (independent) bottlings are released that were matured in relatively mundane sherry casks.
2007 - A new racked warehouse with a capacity of circa 3,000 casks is added to the Arran distillery.
Trivia:
- During the construction of the distillery, a pair of Golden Eagles built their nest on a nearby cliff. Since Golden Eagles are a protected species, construction of the distillery was temporarily halted.
- Arran doesn"t have its own malt mill; ready made grist is purchased from the mainland.
- Until the 1830"s there were three distilleries on the Isle of Arran, all on the southern part of the island.
from Malt Madness