I've been keeping a close eye on Glen Grant's Exploration series, and this first release — a rum cask finish bottled at 48% — caught my attention immediately. Glen Grant is a Speyside distillery with serious pedigree, and when a house known for lighter, fruit-forward spirit decides to play with rum cask influence, I want to know what happens.
The Exploration No.1 is a no-age-statement release, which at £86.50 puts it in competitive territory. You're paying for the cask finishing concept here, and the 48% ABV tells me Glen Grant wanted this to land with enough weight to let that rum cask influence actually speak. That's a smart call — too many rum cask finishes get bottled at 40% and you lose the interplay between the base spirit and the secondary maturation.
What to Expect
Without an age statement, we're likely looking at a vatting chosen specifically for how it responds to rum cask finishing rather than for its maturity alone. Glen Grant's house style leans towards clean, orchard-fruit character — think apple, pear, a certain brightness. When you lay that against the tropical sweetness and molasses depth that Caribbean rum casks tend to impart, you've got the potential for something genuinely interesting. The 48% ABV should give it structure and enough backbone that neither element overwhelms the other.
As a bartender, I know rum cask finishes can go one of two ways: they either complement the base spirit beautifully, or they bulldoze it. The fact that Glen Grant chose this as their opening statement in the Exploration series suggests they're confident in the balance. NAS releases live or die on the blender's skill, and this feels like a deliberate composition rather than a leftover cask experiment.
The Verdict
At 7.6 out of 10, Glen Grant Exploration No.1 earns a solid recommendation. The concept is sound — Speyside fruit meets rum cask warmth at a respectable strength. The price point is fair for what you're getting: a well-considered cask finish from a distillery that knows its spirit inside out. It's not going to rewrite the rulebook, but it doesn't need to. This is a whisky that shows Glen Grant is willing to stretch beyond its comfort zone, and the 48% bottling strength tells me they took the project seriously.
Where it loses a few marks is the NAS pricing. At £86.50, you're in the neighbourhood of some excellent age-stated Speyside bottles, and that comparison is always going to be tough. But if you're buying this for the rum cask concept and the novelty of the Exploration series, it delivers.
Best Served
Pour this neat in a Glencairn and give it ten minutes to open up — that 48% needs a little air to settle. If you want to get creative, this is a whisky I'd genuinely enjoy in an Old Fashioned. The rum cask sweetness should play beautifully with a barspoon of demerara syrup and a couple of dashes of Angostura. Use an orange peel rather than lemon — you want to lean into the tropical warmth, not cut against it. A single large ice cube, stir it properly, and you've got a drink that makes the most of what this bottle is doing.
