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The very best Scotch whisky to purchase at a look
- Greatest mild Scotch: Glenkinchie 12 12 months outdated, £38.95
- Greatest younger Scotch: Wolfburn Northland, £45.91
- Greatest peat Scotch: Highland Park 12 12 months outdated, £31.25
- Greatest traditional Scotch: Benromach 10 12 months outdated, £45
- Greatest smoky whisky: Ardbeg 10 12 months outdated, £40
- Greatest lengthy aged whisky: Lagavulin 16 12 months outdated, £79.90
- Greatest unbiased whisky: Gordon & MacPhail Discovery Miltonduff 10 12 months outdated, £50.95
- Greatest Scotch whisky for rookies: Caol Ila 12 12 months outdated, £38.80
- Greatest grain whisky: Raasay & Borders Distillers The Tweeddale Grain Of Fact, £51.95
- Greatest Scotch whisky for an accessible Speyside: GlenAllachie 15 Yr Previous, £67.94
The very best Scotch whisky to purchase 2022
Glenkinchie 12 12 months outdated
Greatest mild Scotch
ABV: 43%
Glenkinchie, owned by Diageo, relies just some miles exterior Edinburgh, and is likely one of the lightest of the Lowland whiskies, a area given to mild, delicate drams. There are just a few distilleries left within the space, however Glenkinchie, a stalwart producer of whisky even throughout World Conflict II, is now Diageo’s sole consultant from the area.
The nostril is mild and delicate, with flavours of barley and grain, contemporary hay and lemon coming throughout the pale malt sweetness. It drinks very simply, with a prickle of warmth, ginger and cinnamon, and involves a simple end, nonetheless with lemon notes and a bit of dryness.
This can be a very mild Scotch with a few touches that hold it attention-grabbing. For a spirit so mild, it responds effectively to a bit of water to ease the warmth and open up the lemon notes.
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Wolfburn Northland
Greatest younger Scotch
ABV: 46%
Claiming to be essentially the most northerly distillery on the mainland, Wolfburn is new sufficient that Burns Evening will mark solely the seventh anniversary of its first cask being laid down.
Younger whiskies are sometimes fiery. The Northland manages that tendency magnificently, with a far higher smoothness and complexity than you’d anticipate for its age.
There’s no age assertion on Wolfburn Aurora, but it surely definitely has the texture of a younger whisky, with a contemporary, mild nostril giving off a contact of inexperienced apple and grass, a bit of smoke and sea air. It drinks mild and dry, with a restrained complexity.
Grounded by nut and a chocolate/espresso trace nestling underneath the contemporary flavours that roll on from the aroma, the lightness and youth is balanced by a touch of fudge and grape. A delicate end accentuates the smoke, whereas revealing a quiet sweetness.
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If you wish to lean into the smoke, Wolfburn Morven is flippantly peated, with out shedding the comparatively youthful freshness.
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Highland Park 12 12 months outdated
Greatest peat Scotch
ABV: 40%
With a higher northerliness than even Wolfburn, Highland Park comes from Orkney and claims a historical past relationship again to 1798. The distillery nonetheless has its personal flooring malting (a conventional course of the place the grain germinates on a concrete flooring) and makes use of native peat, which supplies its whiskies a part of the character for which it’s well-known.
The 12-year-old is the mainstay of the vary, and the nostril is balanced and medium bodied. There’s an apple word redolent of calvados, with raisins, a suggestion of leather-based and vanilla-led spices to fill it out. Mild smokiness and a touch of briney air intermingle.
To drink, it continues to be balanced, dryish with the smoke and brine overlaying a malt sweetness that emerges on the finish, and a slight nuttiness underneath the bonfire notes on the brief end. Superbly balanced and an amazing introduction to peat Scotch, that is super whisky, even earlier than you get to the aggressive value.
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Benromach 10 12 months outdated
Greatest traditional Scotch
ABV: 43%
Mothballed for lengthy stretches by one among Diageo’s precursors, earlier than being reopened by unbiased bottlers Gordon & MacPhail in 1998, Benromach has expanded within the final twenty years from simply two distillers to a small workforce right this moment. It presently pitches itself as reviving the genuine style of Speyside by bringing a lightweight and, it’s claimed, traditionally correct peat word, to the refined spirits of the area.
A barely buttery malt nostril, with toffee, touches of inexperienced apple and liquorice with a lightweight waft of smoke. The Benromach 10 12 months outdated drinks deceptively simply, with spicy pepper, mild candy malt and extra toffee notes, the bonfire air restrained and entwined with cardamom.
The upper peat ranges are a joyous union with Speyside’s conventional refinement. When you’re on the lookout for additional oomph, the Benromach 100° Proof has a ‘extra is extra’ method, which, apparently, brings down the smoke notes.
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Ardbeg 10 12 months outdated
Greatest smoky whisky
ABV: 46%
Whereas Ardbeg is one other distillery that’s seen a number of ups and downs in its 200-year historical past, it’s laborious to imagine that its doorways have been closed as lately because the Nineties. Together with Highland Park, that is an iconic Scotch whisky, and the Ardbeg 10 12 months outdated is a superb, if bracing, introduction to the distinctive peat and sea air traits of Islay whiskies.
A peat nostril verges in the direction of coal smoke, with softening vanilla and a few citrus. Pepper and even cleaning soap tuck in amongst them. To drink, the physique is wealthy and easy – a mushy, mild caramel malt sweetness earlier than that peat barrels in. The vanilla provides a counterpoint and retains it from pure liquid smoke, even because the mushy malt reveals layers of espresso, liquorice root and pepper. A wealthy mouthfeel contributes to a protracted end, with extra of that savoury smoke, plus a touch of toasted sugar.
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Lagavulin 16 12 months outdated
Greatest long-aged whisky
ABV: 43%
One other iconic Islay whisky, and one which doesn’t stint on the peat smoke heft, the Lagavulin 16 12 months outdated has a big and really devoted following. Whereas an 8 12 months outdated has lately been added to the everlasting vary (and is excellent), the extra physique and refinement of the 16 makes it the Lagavulin to start out with.
As with the Ardbeg, it has an enormous peat smoke nostril and is simply as intense, however right here it pushes lapsang souchong and brine, whereas throttling again the bonfire. Vanilla provides a creamy word, together with bay leaf, even because the smoke and brine swirls round it.
As you sip it, that peat comes straight onto the tongue, with the sweetness the smokes brings sitting alongside a barely salty iodine. A full malt physique slowly reveals itself, in addition to a woody dryness and extra spice. An extended, spicy, candy smoke end revives the lapsang souchong air.
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Gordon & MacPhail Discovery Miltonduff 10 12 months outdated
Greatest unbiased whisky
ABV: 43%
Past the large distilleries is a thriving group of unbiased bottlers (to muddy the waters, a few of them have distilleries, however nonetheless), whose ability lies in shopping for new-make spirits immediately from distilleries, then ageing and bottling themselves. Some, like Gordon & MacPhail, even ship their very own rigorously thought of casks to be stuffed on the distillery.
Performed effectively, unbiased bottlings provide high quality, worth, and the surprising from distilleries you thought you knew. This explicit bottling is from Miltonduff, a distillery that primarily goes into Ballantines’ blends and is never thought to be a single malt.
The nostril could be very wealthy. Smooth cocoa, stewed raisins, spicy rum, candy malt and a nutty trace on the edges. Whenever you drink it, there’s a bit of aggression at the start, however that richness rapidly reasserts itself, with fruitcake notes, extra of the sherry, oaky vanilla and fig. It finishes with nut, oak woodiness and cinnamon spice, including complexity and dryness to a whisky that may in any other case tip into extreme opulence.
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Caol Ila 12 12 months outdated
Greatest Scotch whisky for rookies
ABV: 43%
Caol Ila has spent a big a part of its historical past largely producing fodder for mixing, although its homeowners Diageo noticed a possibility and began releasing underneath its personal identify in 2002. Though the measurable peat portions are as excessive as Lagavulin, it’s an easier-going Islay, one that can assist you get your head round all that smoke and salt aficionados so take pleasure in.
A sniff reveals each full and delicate peat smoke, with sweetness and a lightweight ingredient of brine, presumably even samphire. On consuming, there’s an oiliness too, which follows alongside. There’s a beautiful full, clear mouthfeel, guiding the sweetness, whereas the peat smoke follows after, filling out the area.
Fruity notes with a melon juiciness carry selection to the sweetness, and that surprisingly straightforward, oily physique fades into a protracted smoky end and longer candy edge. An Islay that doesn’t overwhelm could seem to be faint reward, however not everyone seems to be after a bruiser, and when the weather are as effectively organized as this, why deny the enchantment?
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Raasay & Borders Distillers The Tweeddale Grain Of Fact
Greatest grain whisky
ABV: 46%
Tweeddale’s Grain of Fact is a daring try and reclaim the notion of grain whisky as a time period for use with delight. Whereas the opposite whiskies on this article are single malt (that’s, from a single distillery and made solely with malted barley), grain whisky can embody different grains, akin to wheat, rye or oats, malted or unmalted. Grain whisky usually has a lighter physique, and that lightness normally pushes it to blends, slightly than to being utilized in its personal proper.
Right here although, a grain whisky is the star. A grist of fifty% barley and 50% wheat, matured in bourbon barrels and completed in oloroso sherry hogshead casks, this has an surprising fullness, with a wealthy fruity nostril. Vanilla and sweet floss mingle with a clear, nearly menthol high quality. Very easy, with an fringe of the alcohol presenting itself at 46%, plus titbits of ginger biscuits and hazelnut poking by way of. It finishes cleanly, with the spice and trace of tannins of oak.
Wealthy, however sidestepping the heft of many single malts, Grain of Fact additionally sits very neatly in cocktails like a bobby burns, or within the place of bourbon in a boulevardier.
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The GlenAllachie 15 Yr Previous
Greatest Scotch whisky for an accessible Speyside
ABV: 46%
Whereas the The GlenAllachie, constructed within the late Sixties, lacks the heritage of a few of its older Speyside neighbours, the distillery has seen a revival in the previous couple of years. Taken on by the feted grasp distiller and blender Billy Walker in 2017, it has began placing out a fuller, fruitier spirit than earlier than, with the 15 12 months outdated an amazing instance.
Bottled at 46%, with no chill filtering, it has a wealthy chestnut glow within the glass. The nostril is full and sophisticated, with out being heavy – dried fruit, honey, baked quince, cinnamon, nutmeg and a touch of frangipane. On the palate, dried figs, chocolate and vanilla emerge on a full mouthfeel, in addition to a darkish sugar sweetness that avoids being sticky. It finishes flippantly, a whisper of smoke and the spices and fruit lingering for a number of seconds.
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A word on whisky miniatures…
If diving in and selecting up a complete bottle appears intimidating, many specialist whisky retailers provide double measure bottlings (50ml) at a commensurate value. Drinks by the Dram provide many glorious small measure units you’ll be able to experiment with.
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This assessment was final up to date in October 2022. When you’ve got any questions, solutions for future opinions or spot something that has modified in value or availability please get in contact at goodfoodwebsite@rapid.co.uk.
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