Arran 18yo
Official Bottling | 46% ABV
Score: 7/10
Very Good Indeed.
TL;DR
A very good 18 year old
Dear Deirdre
I’m worried about my number of open bottles.
Two seemingly unrelated things ran riot in my head like rogue casks rolling down a distillery hill. Suddenly, I found myself rethinking how my whisky collection is evolving, and more importantly, how it's actually being used.
Now, if you ask my wife, she’s absolutely convinced I’ve amassed enough bottles to see me through to the bitter end - possibly with enough surplus to toast the apocalypse and still have a few tucked away for the afterparty. In fact, if we were in ancient Egypt I think there is a good chance the bottles would be entombed with me for that afterparty.
But I ran the numbers; some back-of-the-fag-packet maths. Assuming a modest 70ml a day (I’m nothing if not restrained) and a lifespan stretching to a ripe ninety years. The result? I’m staring down a shortfall of over 1,200 bottles, more if you exclude bottles that I won’t choose to drain while my tastebuds and smell are fully functioning. That’s not a collection, what it is may actually be a crisis. I almost felt the need to measure up for additional shelving and increase my current capacity immediately.
So either I need to slow down, live faster, or start lobbying for a second liver and a longer lease on life. Because at this rate, I’m not hoarding - I’m actually vastly underprepared.
But that’s a spurious justification for my current collection size and not something I can consider a justification for continuing to accumulate.
The first thing I was thinking about was just how many bottles do I have opened? I do have a decent number unopened - but as I in no way ever plan to flip, sell or monetise any bottle, all my bottles are ‘openable’ on the correct whim and pretty much fair game for anyone who comes to our house. In fact sometimes that is an exact reason to open something - if someone simply expresses an interest in it.
Recently though I had a bottle of the Series 2 Thompson Bros Mystery Malt unopened, and it had been sitting for a good few weeks. Having been very happy with my Series 1 there was definitely a whole Schrodinger's Cat dynamic going on with the Series 2 bottle, it couldn’t be good or bad whilst it was unopened and the origin unknown. Neither good nor bad, neither known nor knowable.
I’d procured two of the Second Series, but I’d sent a bottle to a friend in the Far East, and he’d opened his and he refused to tell me what it was until I cracked mine open. Now, you don’t want to think you’ve gone to the trouble of getting a bottle delivered halfway across the globe only for it to be better suited to lighting the barbecue, do you? So I opened mine. Sooner than I might’ve chosen. Peer pressure, postal drama, and the absurdity of First World whisky dilemmas. But, regardless, another open bottle has just been added to the number of open bottles I can choose from.
Which leads neatly to the second quandary: just how many bottles should you have open at once - and is there a hidden cost to keeping them that way?
It’s a theme tackled brilliantly in Episode 8 of the Dramface Colonials Podcast. My car doubles as my podcast delivery vehicle, and on a recent drive I listened to a fascinating discussion about what really happens inside those open bottles - and how long they can safely sit before the whisky begins to change.
I’ll admit, I felt slightly exposed: I’m probably at the higher end of the open‑bottle spectrum compared to other collectors. The consensus, which I’ve heard echoed before, is that whisky left open too long can lose some of its character. Not that it becomes unsafe, but oxidation gradually mutes the flavour profile - and that effect is magnified each time the cork is pulled for a pour.
Having not undertaken a controlled experiment on this I will absolutely be leaving the science on this one to those more knowledgeable, but the concept sounds to me like it has a good logic behind it, and while I’m not convinced there is going to be a real noticeable flavour depreciation over a year or two it is definitely something to be alive to.
So, in the weeks since that podcast I have made a concerted effort to polish off some of the lower fill level bottles in my collection. In that time I have said goodbye to the Glen Scotia 12, Springbank 10 (instantly replaced from the cupboard), Daftmill 15 – Fife Strength (very sad to see that one go), Ardnamurchan AD 09.22 Cask Strength, Ardnamurchan Rum Cask (the one the lady in the distillery tried to dissuade me from buying), my Bruichladdich Micro Provence cask 2113 and my Dalmore 18 (a proper gateway whisky for me but not one I’m planning to replace). So, what is left that falls within that category of needing finishing before it affects the flavour?
And what remains in that category of bottles needing to be finished before the flavour fades? With Dramface, you always check whether a whisky has already been reviewed. After scanning my shelves and ruling out a few candidates, I was surprised to discover that this particular bottle hadn’t yet been covered. Which brings me, finally, to our dram at hand.
Review
Arran 18yo, distilled at Lochranza distillery, official bottling, 46% ABV
£90 paid at auction, available from £100 retail with plenty availability
I don’t think I’ve ever had a Lochranza bottling that I didn’t enjoy. Yes, some are better than others but, on the whole, it is pretty much a guaranteed good dram.
Arran recently bottled a 30-year-old, and I have heard conflicting reports about the Arran 25-year-old, some saying this is the final bottling for more than a decade, others suggesting that Arran intends to continue offering it annually in small allocations of around 3,000 bottles. The 25-year-old is currently RRPing at a whopping £405 so you can imagine what the 30-year-old will command. But having checked today the 18-year-old can still be picked up online for £100. There also used to be the 21-year-old (Arran 21yo — Dramface), but that’s a secondary market purchase if you can find it now.
I have had this bottle more than a couple of years now, having picked it up at auction in early 2023. It is one of those that always seems a treat, but not an absolute indulgence, so it has hung around being savoured one dram at a time, slowly oxidising its flavoursome heart out - potentially.
It is a 2022 release, matured in sherry and bourbon casks, and doesn’t suffer from chill filtration or colouring.
Score: 7/10
Very Good Indeed.
TL;DR
A very good 18 year old
Nose
The sherry notes are quite pronounced on the nose but have a real undercurrent of soft overripe peach, dried apricots and vanilla. There is an initial aroma of honey and a bit of luxurious caramel.
Palate
It’s not the thickest dram - perhaps a touch on the thin side - but it makes up for that with a generous burst of fruit. Cherry, dark berries, apricot, and pear all come through vividly. A thread of dark chocolate bitterness weaves in alongside pepper and woody spice, adding depth. Interestingly, the vanilla promised on the nose doesn’t quite carry into the palate, as you might hope from the bourbon cask influence.
This isn’t a full-blown sherry bomb; the cask influence is clear but measured, complementing rather than overwhelming the other notes.
The finish sits in the short-to-medium range, yet it’s layered and engaging - complex enough to invite another sip.
The Dregs
This is a very good dram. It is probably too heavy on the sherry cask as opposed to the bourbon for me, but as I understand it, the previous releases may have been more sherried. I also think it would have been better at a slightly stronger ABV: it would have had that bit more bite and longevity just to enhance its presence a bit.
Having reflected on why the bottle has lasted so long, the two things that occurred to me were, it was a heavy purchase at an earlier stage of my whisky journey, and just because it says 18 years on it. Yes, at £100 I would say this is a good value 18-year-old, but it’s not an ‘occasion dram’. There’s a good chance I would buy another in the future if it’s still at the £100 mark, but probably not at £130.
And in case anyone is wondering what my Mystery Malt Series 2 was, it was a Dornoch 5-year-old, and absolutely tremendous too. And the one that went to the Far-East? That was this little beauty - Clynelish 9yo - Thompson Bros Mystery Malt — Dramface.
That particular open or not dilemma has now been replaced with a Mystery Malt Series 3 that is sitting unopened.
But my actual conclusion? Hopefully we all see ninety years of age but since there’s no guarantee, it’s open your bottles folks.
Score: 7/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. CC
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