Arran 1997 Rowan Tree Icons of Arran

Arran Quarter Cask "The Bothy"

Nose: clean and oaky, with sawn lumber at first. This gradually evolves into an array of fresh fruits: honeydew melon, green banana, pineapple. Light coconut. Fresh, clean, and appealing. Taste: off-dry and sappy with a hint of cinnamon pastry, leading into a straightforward malty delivery which builds into some nice vanilla-citrus notes...

Score 88/100

Arran 14 Year Old

Arran is a relatively new distillery, founded in 1993. Besides its single malts, it also crafts the Robert Burns blends (his birthplace, Alloway, lies across the water), which I've never tried. I believe it is the only distillery on the island (though of course there used to be many more). The 14 Year Old is non chill filtered and of natural...

Score 85/100

Arran 17 Year Old 1996 Malts of Scotland

Boy, the kids at Malts of Scotland really got it into their heads to bottle new (to them) stuff this time around. After the Teaninich and Fettercairn, they now also launch there very first malt from the Isle of Arran. That means they acquired the cask rather early, it is from 1996. Let us not forget that Arran was founded only in 1994 and...

Score 84/100

Arran 10 Year Old

I remember rolling my eyes at a marketing guy's statement that "maturity and age aren't the same thing". He was defending a move by a major distillery to do away with age statements in their core range and replace their age stated bottles with the names of Pole Dancers, er, I mean colours. He went on to compare choosing which whiskies to...

Score 86/100