Glen Grant Five Decades

Type: Single malt

Origin: Scotland

ABV: 46% 

Malt Mileage rating: 

Reaction: 😁

Glen Grant Five Decades celebrates the five decades which its Master Distiller, Dennis Malcolm, has spent at the distillery. Mr Malcolm joined Glen Grant in April 1961 as an apprentice cooper and over 50 years later he still works at the Speyside distillery, now as its Master Distiller. Mr Malcolm says that he hand selected his favourite casks from the last five decades to make the multi-vintage Glen Grant Five Decades. 

Nose: Candied apricot and ginger, lemon peel, creamy vanilla, crushed nuts, apple pie, raisin fruit cake, wisps of wood smoke and mild menthol – it’s all happening here, led by sherry wood! 

Taste: Luscious and with a slightly oily mouth-feel, the whisky tastes mostly of fresh zesty citrus, vanilla, apricot, and all-spice; the all-spice slowly morphs into warming prickly spices. Sugary marmalade adds clashing flavours of sweetness and bitterness, and the sugars settle into rummy brown sugars and caramel, dark fruit cake, dark chocolate and a cloud of herbal menthol and wood smoke.

Finish: Buttery, with vanillas, honey, cocoa and drying sherry; then cherry cola and toffee.

Overall: Mindbogglingly good! Glen Grant Five Decades is seriously complex single malt that takes time to unlock, and just when you think you’ve figured it out, new surprises are unlocked with each whiff and sip.