.the arran - premium single bourbon cask - #99/130

Once in a while a cask of whisky seems to stand out so much, it would be a shame to marry it off and lose it in a larger batch of whisky. In such case, a sack gets special treatment and is bottled on it's own and released as a premium single cask with the Arran distillery. In case of cask number 1999/130, there were only 164 bottles left to be sold at the distillery's Visitors Centre.

55.3% abv, €99 (sold out), single malt, non-chill filtered, natural colour

Nose: chocolate, sweet, earthy, mushrooms, spicy, floral, violets, blooming heather, fruit, bananas, tropical fruit, pineapple, citrus, fresh citrus-mint, citrus-thyme

Palate: sweet, hot, spicy, white pepper, dry, fruit, stonefruits, peach, honey, floral, violets

Finish: sweet, spicy, cinnamon, red pepper, medium-dry, rather long, tropical fruit, pineapple
Mark: ++++/+ 

Conclusion: I for one am a big fan of the Arran ex-Bourbon cask releases. I have had some, made notes from less than half of them, some were indy releases, and none of them have disappointed so far. These distillery releases are among the best of their kind, so whenever you find yourself at the distillery, make sure to try before you buy, but be sure to have space in your luggage just the same.

.thanks to the Whisky Wire and the Arran Malt for shipping us the samples for the twitter tasting