Arran | William’s Whisky Database

ABV: 50 %
Origin: Islands
Type: Single Malt
Bottles in collection: 0
Emptied bottles: 2
Impression: 4/5

Tasting notes
Nose: This is sweet and sour. At first there’s a thick layer of sweetness with honey, vanilla and sweet, green grapes sitting on top of a mix of fresh lemon and tropical fruits. There are pineapple, mango and passion fruit notes within the fruitiness. It feels rich and there’s a spicyness somewhere out towards the edges and it comes from a fairly fresh oakiness. There’s also a salty caramel floating around somewhere on top. This is a very nice nose. It’s not complex and it’s a bit too sweet, but it still feels decently balanced.

Mouth: It Starts out with sweet green grapes and gooseberries and a sweet honey and vanilla richness. Behind the sweetness there’s lemon in the back, now with a bit of zesty bitterness. The tropical fruits can still be found as well. There’s a slight dustiness, some malt and a pinch of salt in the center. It very much has a white wine aura from the finishing casks. After a while a quite complex mix of savory and sour starts to arise in the background and it has a gritty note attached to it. A mild spicyness builds up around the edges for those who wait.

Finish: The spicyness slowly intensifies and it doesn’t take long before the whole array of flavours follow. The tropical fruits gets to shine but they do have the lemon zest in the background as back-up. The front of the palate consists of the honey and vanilla sweetness, but it feels slightly more generic at this point. It’s a long finish and when the flavours start to fade the oak, lemon and spicyness stays behind and gives it a very nice send of. The oak is competent and brings a nice coconut flavour to the late finish. This is a great whisky. It’s a little bit too sweet but overall gives a nice journey throughout.

Additional information
This whisky was aged for around 6 years in ex-bourbon barrels and then finished for 8-12 months in Sauternes wine barriques. It’s unchillfiltered and has natural colour.

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ABV: 43 %
Origin: Islands
Type: Single Malt
Bottles in collection: 0
Emptied bottles: 0
Impression: 3/5

Tasting notes
Nose: This is sweet and sour. At first there’s a thin sweet layer of honey and vanilla. Underneath there’s a lemon sitting side by side to a savory note. It feels young and lively without being ethanol driven and metallic. Over time the sweet and sour notes seem to merge but the lemon sourness is dominating. The savory note stays in the background. A liquorice note slowly arrives around the edges and an oakiness creates a thin top note. This is a nice and straight forward nose. It’s a bit too mild it feels a bit unbalanced.

Mouth: It starts out very mild and sweet and first out is a rather flat vanilla note. After a second or two the sour note arrives but it stays in the back. There’s a lot of the distillate coming through. There’s a spicyness, yet extremely mild, coming from a the oakiness, which sits in the center together with a now more rich vanilla and a slight dustiness. It feels a bit uninteresting at this point.

Finish: The oak steps forward early in the transition and the sour lemon note steps forward from the start. It’s dusty and sweet with the honey and vanilla. It’s still mild and it never really takes off. The oak spices are still in there though. When the oakiness takes over it reveals a fresh woodshop oakiness. It’s slightly astringent but mostly it comes through as a generic oak note. This is a good whisky but it is a bit too mild and unbalanced to be really interesting.

Additional information
There is not much information to be found about this whisky. It’s an older NAS release from the distillery. It has natural colour.

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