If the 10 Year Old is Glen Grant's calling card, the 21 Year Old is its argument for patience. Bottled at 46% and drawn chiefly from refill American oak, it shows what the Rothes distillate — that clean, purifier-driven spirit — becomes when left undisturbed for two decades in the dunnage warehouses.
The distillery was founded in 1840 and remained under Grant family ownership until 1977, when it passed to Seagram, and then through Chivas Brothers to its current owners Campari, who acquired it in 2006. Under master distiller Dennis Malcolm — a Rothes man who started at Glen Grant as an apprentice cooper in 1961 — the older expressions have been given renewed focus.
What makes the 21 Year Old worth the outlay is the development of tropical fruit. Long ex-bourbon maturation of a light, fruity distillate tends, in the best examples, to produce mango, pineapple and guava notes alongside a waxy, honeyed texture — the sort of character that Clynelish drinkers will recognise, though Glen Grant arrives at it by a different road. The oak is present but never overbearing, contributing spice and structure rather than tannin.
This is a whisky for contemplation rather than conversation. It demonstrates that Speyside need not mean sherry to reach the top rank, and that the house style Major Grant engineered in the 1880s still has the bones to carry twenty-one years of wood.
