Arran 10 Year Single Malt Scotch

If there’s one thing that a whiskey (or whisky) drinker should know, it’s that the journey to having sampled all of “the classics” is a long and seemingly never-ending one. Since my interest in single malt scotch whisky developed a few years ago, that’s the task I’ve essentially been attempting, whether I knew it or not—seek out all of the classic malts, and sample them one by one. But even as I try them on a regular basis, I know there will always be more waiting to be discovered.

There have been a few products that have helped me along on that journey. One of them, I wrote about last November in the form of a lovely little scotch whisky advent calendar from a U.K. company called Drinks by the Dram. At the time, I wrote some capsule reviews of various tiny bottles I’d sampled from the calendar, but in truth, I still have a handful of those little 50 ml samples left. I do, after all, have a lot of other beer and whiskey to review. But from time to time, I’ll crack open one of the remaining little bottles and sample another malt I’ve probably never tried before.

Most of those whiskies, I don’t feel compelled to write anything about, but trying Arran 10 Year Old was an exception to the rule. This one came out of left field and surprised me so pleasantly that I felt I needed to acknowledge it. Because what we have here is one of the best pure value malts available in either Scotland or the U.S., and a uniquely welcoming dram.

The Arran distillery—its products were previously labled as “The Arran Malt” until they were redesigned in 2019—is a unique little company located on the Isle of Arran, in Scotland’s Firth of Clyde. They’re the only official distillery on the island, which was known for its wealth of illegal distillates for centuries, but geographically they fall in a unique place. The Isle of Arran falls into the small bay between the Campbeltown peninsula (itself a classic scotch whisky region ) and the Lowlands scotch whisky region, but belongs to neither. Instead, it’s grouped into the nebulous concept of “The Islands,” which is sometimes considered its own region and sometimes lumped into The Highlands, despite the fact that Arran is nowhere near the Highlands. Likewise, the profile of Arran’s single malts is different from most other Island distilleries, which tend to lean more in the direction of the heavily peated, smoky scotches of the Islay region. Arran’s malts, on the other hand, are sweet and honeyed by comparison. They are decidedly their own thing, which I suppose makes sense—the distillery has only been in operation since 1994, which makes it still practically an infant in the scotch whisky scene.

The flagship products of Arran are the distillery’s non-age-stated Robert Burns single malt, and the core Arran 10 Year, the youngest of its age-stated products. That’s the sample I had, and that’s what we’re reviewing today. It’s bottled at a respectable 92 proof (46% ABV). It’s not entirely clear what kind of barrels this is aged in, but the assumption is that it’s exclusively re-use bourbon casks.