Glen Grant 10 yo (40%, OB, -/+ 2022)
Colour: bright straw. Nose: pears, gooseberries, apples, general 'orchard fruit' vibes and also some wee touches of hops, citrus and buttered toast. There's an overall more modern, American oak influenced profile on display here. But I find it extremely easy and quietly charming, it's just let down a bit by the 40% (isn't everything?). Mouth: yup, 40% is tough these days. Same lovely profile of easy sweetness and orchard fruits, only here I'd add some yellow plums, apricots and honey. But that low power gives a slight feeling of cardboard as well, sadly. Still, this in a tumbler at almost any time of day would be easy and enjoyable in my view. Finish: on the short side, going towards light fruit teas and golden ales. Some breads and cereals now too. Comments: it's a modern style, quite a long way from the glorious old distillate monster Glen Grants of yesteryear (stay tuned for some of them!) but it's also quiet, humble, easy and charmingly un-showy malt whisky.
SGP: 541 - 80 points.

Glen Grant 15 yo 'Batch Strength' 1st Edition (50%, OB, -/+ 2022)
'Batch Strength' feels like a very Friday afternoon sort of branding decision. Colour: bright straw. Nose: tighter, sweeter and more focussed on golden syrups, baked apples and various flowers with their pollens. But also a little more American oak assertiveness too. With water: greener, fresher, grassier and more open and playful. Water is your friend here I'd say. Mouth: more towards apples in various formats, sweet cider, butterscotch and a touch of vanilla icing. Good heft in the mouth but perhaps a tiny bit too much pepperiness from the oak for my liking. With water: the oak eases off ever so slightly which allows those various fruits and flowers a bit more elbow room. Finish: medium, barley sugars, digestive biscuits, pressed flowers and fruit teas. Comments: it's all very fine, and technically probably worth a couple of extra points, but why can we not have a version of the 10yo at this one's bottling strength? One day, I will be in charge of Glen Grant*, then all this stuff will get sorted out once and for all! I find this bottling a bit annoying because I really want to like it more than I do. Even though, once again, it's a perfectly easy and fine drop.
SGP: 551 - 82 points.

Glen Grant 1997/2020 (52%, Caora, cask #23806, 225 bottles)
Colour: straw. Nose: fresh and natural at first with rather a lot of barley, bailed hay and then hints of fruit scone mix and shortbread. With time a little more custardy sweetness from the cask comes through along with wee glass of youthful sauternes. Very easy and elegant. With water: still slightly cakey and easily sweet, a tad more forest greenery and a little shoe polish. Mouth: same vibes! Honeys, pollens, sweet wines, a spoonful of custard and some greener notes of crushed nettles and herbs. With water: a glass of orange Sunny Delight dosed with a shot of old Benedictine liqueur (is that a cocktail already?) also some lemon marmalade and fennel seed. Finish: good length, slightly firmer, waxier and more on pollens, flower honeys and citrons. Comments: very lovely, easy and natural Glen Grant. The epitome and positive sweetness in malt whisky I would say.
SGP: 641 - 87 points.

Glen Grant 23 yo 1998/2021 (50.4%, Lady Of The Glen, cask #9711, oloroso sherry hogshead finish, 307 bottles)
Colour: amber. Nose: richly sherried but you do get the sense it is a finish due to all this rather up front jammy sweetness and sticky fruits like plums and damsons. I also find some lovely impressions of flower nectars, pollens and golden syrup. Easy and very inviting. With water: more complex now, with herbal teas, roots, damp forest vibes and tobaccos. Mouth: a little drier than anticipated, on walnuts, mushrooms, leaf mulch and bitter dark chocolate. Straight down the line and very classical. With water: again it goes more towards dried herbs, roots, tea tree oil, wintergreen and cupboard spices. Quite punchy now in fact. Finish: good length, on bitter herbs, black tea, liquorice and a shot of espresso! Comments: would be interesting to know the length of the finish on this one, it's certainly the case that the sherry had a lot to say, but all good things.
SGP: 561 - 87 points.

Glen Grant 8 yo (100 proof, Gordon & MacPhail, early 1970s)
A bottle I opened for one of the Whisky Show Old & Rare virtual tastings earlier this year, themed around 'naked distillate'. Colour: pale white wine. Nose: a long way from the current 10 and 15, quite amazingly so really. This is a pure mash up of mineral, sunflower and lamp oils. Also suggestions of plaster, wet chalk, limestone and white flowers. Also an almost crystalline barley note running underneath. Utterly impeccable distillate. It has that highly austere, petrolic quality you often find in Cadenhead or SMWS bottlings from the early 90s, only this has something that many of those ones miss, which is class and depth of body to the distillate with these paraffin and waxy aspects. Probably due to old methods of production. With water: linens, camphor, ink and oily toolboxes. Also putty and more white flowers along with vase water and a greener note of crushed flower stems. Mouth: pure and vividly on paraffin, lamp oil, hessians, clay, ointments and warm peppery notes of watercress and mustard powder. Powerful without a trace of peat, and once again the word that comes to mind is class. A true barley eau de vie. With water: waxier in texture and flavour, but still bone dry, pure and impeccably peppery. A mustardy vibe that nods towards old Banffs. Finish: long, warming, peppery and with more paraffin, waxes, hessian and ink. Comments: a perfectly austere and bone-dry old Glen Grant that is entirely about the beautifully constructed distillate. Not sure too many current makes could withstand this kind of total exposure at only 8 years old. Now, it's also a very old fashioned style in some ways. A wine nerds whisky, as we often say on wee Whiskyfun.
SGP: 362 - 90 points. 

Glen Grant 15 yo (100 proof, Gordon & MacPhail, UK market, -/+ 1975)
Despite this being a UK bottling, some very helpful Italian collector has written on the rear label at some point 'Collezione 29/01/77', which is always cool to see. I've written notes on here for similar bottlings by G&M before, but who knows what sort of batch variation there was at the time. And of course, any excuses etc… Colour: white wine. Nose: It's really the 8yo distillate profile just with double the age in refill wood. Which means it's more rounded and those slightly raw, petrolic qualities have rounded into more seductive waxy tones, honey, wood resins and camphor. Superbly mineral, fatty and flinty with pollens, white flowers and bouillon. Just terrific distillate once again. With water: clay, pebbles, chalk, flints, carbon paper, ink and dried herbs. Also citronella wax and lapsing souchong tea with lemon. Mouth: the age makes quite a difference here, it's more fruity with a lot of citrus, white stone fruit and sharper green and exotic touches too. Fruit teas, myrtle, olive oil, waxes and white pepper. Wonderful texture, perfect balance and the same combination of power, purity and class as in the 8yo. With water: the texture is hugely impressive now, water makes everything fatter, greasier, oilier and more mouth-coating. Some perfectly bitter herbal notes, a little saltiness and many things like putty, waxy and shoe polish. Finish: long, peppery, slightly salty and wonderfully oily and waxy. Comments: these batches are kind of like the work horses of G&M from this era, they just feel effortless and rather like they shouldn't be this good. Would crush most modern malt bottlings, mainly because they manage to combine being technically excellent with a whole heap of soul too.
SGP: 462 - 92 points.

Glen Grant 10 yo (80 proof, J W Cameron & Co Ltd, 1950s)
J W Cameron were a wine merchant in Hartlepool apparently, with the good sense to have their own bottling of Glen Grant at 80 proof no less. Colour: pale amber. Nose: a profile that only very old single malts at good bottling strength seem able to deliver. A single, cohesive and utterly poetic mix of medicines, herbs, liqueurs, rooty peat aromas and a pristine, faintly salty old sherry full of rancio, walnuts and herbal teas. Poetic is the word, and utterly exquisite! Mouth: amazing freshness and staying power! Stunning saltiness, like the most gorgeous, leathery and rancio-laden VORS oloroso. And within that there's further notes of leathers, tobaccos and medicinal roots - the full 'Gentleman's library' factor! So many tiny, stunning wee flavours emerging. The best salty Dutch liquorice, ancient yellow Chartreuse, verbena, wormwood, umami broths and my beloved Maggi! I could demolish a Nebuchadnezzar of this before the year is out! Finish: stunningly long, resinous, salty and even starting to show some surprisingly exotic dried fruity qualities. More of these ancient medicinal roots, herbs and stunning old style peat flavours. Comments: how many random old bottlings of Glen Grant such as this one have there been over the years? I suspect what we know about is but a fragment, no wonder it was held in such high regard as the great single malt by many aficionados in the days before Macallan discovered marketing. A humble, show stopping wee masterpiece.
SGP: 563 - 94 points. 

Glen Grant 1959-1960/1986 (40%, Gordon & MacPhail, Marriage of Andrew and Fergie)
Let's hope this whisky stands up better than Prince Andrew's reputation… Colour: amber. Nose: gah! I'm the ultimate push-over for this style! Drying, slightly salty bodega style funk and earthiness, imbued with damp pipe tobaccos, unlit aged cigars, humidor must, bitter dark chocolate, green walnut liqueur and pure rancio! G&M were just masters of this kind of profile. Mouth: perfect balance and elegance. Dryness from the sherry, along with a little salinity of salted almonds, tiny notes of paprika, cured game meats, leather, bouillon, heavy rancio and top quality dark chocolate. Also wee darker peppery tones, preserved dark fruits stewed in some old Armagnac and a rich umami vibe. You could add impressions of damp forest petrichor, black miso and soy sauce as well. It's all going on here! I'd even add medicinal roots and herbs, old style chest and throat sweets, wormwood and herbal liqueurs. Just fantastic! Finish: long, brilliantly herbal, peppery, full of sticky dark fruits, cupboard spices such as cloves and cinnamon, and this wonderfully persistent walnut-infused rancio. Comments: Another utterly seductive and stunning old Glen Grant from G&M. Now the queen has departed, could we just disband the Royal family and re-direct the tax spend into getting Glen Grant back to churning out this kind of juice please? For the good of the nation.
SGP: 662 - 93 points.

Glen Grant 72 yo 1948/2020 (52.6%, Gordon & MacPhail for Premier Whisky Hong Kong, American oak sherry cask, cask #440, 290 bottles)
Speaking of G&M… Colour: amber/mahogany. Nose: concentrated dark fruits, exotic hardwood resins, ancient herbal liqueurs and many, many combinations of dried exotic fruits with similarly exotic and funky spices. One of those incredible profiles that G&M seem to specialise in where the whisky is simultaneously woody and fresh at the same time. I adore these fruity peppercorn and medicinal wormwood qualities. Also this gorgeously mentholated, extremely old peat aroma coming through beneath everything. With water: just a totally harmonious and endlessly complex old Glen Grant - one of the few distillates that can really shine at almost any age like this. Mouth: stunning arrival, full on dried dark and exotic fruits, aged black teas, crystallised honey, fir wood, resinous old fruit liqueurs and this marvellously balanced spicy complexity. With water: gets more sappy, mentholated and these gorgeous layers of honey, exotic fruit liqueurs and dusty old phenolics just become deeper, louder and denser. In short the whole thing goes up several notches of complexity and also power. Finish: good length and stunning, menthol, herbal and phenolic. Wood resins that become a notch more drying but not excessive, tobaccos, wine cellar mulch and rancio. You could go on four hours detailing all the tiny impressions this keeps igniting in the mind. Comments: Doesn't 'feel' like a 72 year old whisky if I'm honest. But then I'm no expert in 70+ year old whiskies. What can you really say? Another wonderful ancient malt that we have to thank G&M for caretaking all these decades. And another demonstration of the stamina of Glen Grant's distillate from those years. Let's hope that when G&M finally release a 100 year old it'll be a Glen Grant - although, will it be as good as that old J W Cameron 10yo…? ;) 
SGP: 672 - 93 points.