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| Hi, this is one of our (almost) daily tastings. Santé! |
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October 24, 2025 |
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The Time Warp Sessions,
today young Glen Grant
You’ll remember, the idea is to compare recent and older bottlings of malts of roughly the same age and, of course, from the same distillery. |
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Glen Grant 12 yo (75° proof, Moray Bonding Co, UK market, 1960s) 
Angus already tasted this rare baby some years back, but we shan’t dwell on that. Moray Bonding held a licence to bottle Glen Grant, and while several 12-year-olds were issued for the Italian market labelled ‘43°’, this ‘75° proof’ version for the UK is much rarer. That said, 43 GL and 75 proof amount to the same thing... Colour: white wine. Nose: flawless purity, on almond oil, beeswax polish, and the faintest trace of smoky solvent. This is soon followed by glorious whiffs of mineral oil and even a nostalgic two-stroke petrol and oil mix, Kawasaki-style. A fabulous nose – and rather less perilous than those Kawasakis. Mouth: implausibly salty, mechanical, oily, fat, with just a few wrinkled apples from the fruit section. Still, it’s utterly wonderful, and if some once considered Glen Grant the undisputed king of Speyside in those days, it wasn’t without reason. Finish: long, splendidly fat and bitter, and comes across as rather stronger than its 75° proof suggests. Now bubbling broths of every kind also make an appearance. Comments: a monumental young whisky, and apologies to whatever follows next...
SGP:462 - 92 points. |
Oops, we're really being harsh here, and on top of that, we hadn't noticed the next one had been finished in rum casks... |
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Glen Grant 'Exploration No.1' (48%, OB, limited edition, rum cask finish, 2025) 
This sort of finishing and the whole travel-themed concept is precisely the kind of ‘innovation’ (ahem) that every single distillery seems to be pursuing at the exact same time. Next up, tequila; then mizunara; and then tequila ex-mizunara. That said, we do appreciate the bottling strength – 48% is not bad at all. Colour: white wine. Nose: hold on, this is actually not bad at all! It would appear the rum used had a bit of character, perhaps something Jamaican, maybe Appleton, since both Glen Grant and Appleton are owned by Campari? Nicely oily, with phenolic touches, a whisper of olive oil, the faintest dab of (posh) shampoo, then ripe apples, which have become rather classic in younger contemporary Glen Grants, a far cry from their much bolder ancestors of the 1950s or 60s. All things considered, this is very decent indeed for a humble NAS. Mouth: same impression of a rum with a good ester count, even more vivid than on the nose. What’s more, the assemblage, right, or rather the finishing, seems to have been handled with care. But let’s be frank, the rum does overpower the malt, though since it was a very fine rum, there’s really no complaint here. Lovely notes of olives, hints of tar, and a nice saline touch. Finish: fairly long, salty, rather fat, and genuinely very good. Comments: a surprise indeed. Then again, the rum could also have been agricole, perhaps Trois Rivières or La Mauny, both now under the Campari umbrella these past three or four years.
SGP:652 - 85 points. |
Well, it's not been the bloodbath I was fearing after all! |
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