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This is part three of a mini-series of reviews featuring small batch Speyside malts from the Dalgety range. Dalgety is a bottling line from Hannah Whisky Merchants, the company behind Lady of the Glen independent bottlers. The whisky featured in this review comes from Glen Spey.

*Full disclosure: the sample featured in this review was sent to me free of charge. As always, I will try to give an honest opinion on the quality of the dram and the value for money it represents.

Glen Spey 2013 10 year old Single Malt

When you drive through Speyside, it feels like every village has its own wee selection of distilleries and Rothes is a perfect example of that. It’s home to Speyburn, Glen Grant, Glenrothes and Glen Spey (and Caperdonich, before it closed in 2002).

Glen Spey was built in 1878, inside an old oat mill. Like Linkwood (from the previous review), the distillery is owned by Diageo and spends much of its time producing whisky for blends. The owner bottles a solitary 12 year old, as part of the Flora & Fauna range but the spirit shows up from time to time in the output of independent bottlers.

This Glen Spey is a vatting of two casks, each finished in port. The first was a refill Ruby Port cask, the second, a barrique seasoned with “Super Porto” wine from the Douro Valley. The whisky is 10 years old and bottled at 50.2%.

Smell: There’s lots of exotic spices. Fruit jam. Grape juice. Raspberry and blackcurrant diluting juice – Ribena! Varnished oak and a wee touch of charcoal. Under the port there’s some cereal notes with vanilla buttercream.

Taste: The Ribena vibe is there from the moment the dram arrives on the palate and it’s followed by some spice, which develops into juicy oak with some of the charcoal from the nose coming in towards the back. More blackcurrant before a dry, oaky finish with lingering, lip-tingling spices.

Thoughts: Possibly my favourite of the three Dalgety releases in this series, though I’m a sucker for a port cask, admittedly. The casks are quite dominant and as a result, the whisky might lack some of the complexity of the previous offerings but it makes up for it with the life and fruity vibrancy of the port. The wee touch of oak and spice give it a bit of backbone and the bottling strength – not too high, not too low – makes it really approachable. It doesn’t need water, though I found a wee splash elevated the jammy fruits and brought some added oiliness to the mouthfeel – something I always enjoy as a sensation. A pleasant and fun wee dram.

Price: £70. In today’s inflated market, this 10 year old seems like quite good value.

For more on Dalgety / Lady of the Glen visit here

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