Glenturret sits beside the Turret Burn just outside Crieff in Perthshire, and has long made a virtue of its antiquity. The distillery traces its licensed origins to 1775, though records of illicit distilling on the site predate that by some margin, and the claim to be 'Scotland's oldest working distillery' is made here with more confidence than any rival can quite muster. For many years the site was best known as the spiritual home of the Famous Grouse blend, and to the coachloads who came to meet Towser the mouser. The sale to a Lalique-led consortium in 2019 refocused the estate squarely on its own single malt, and the core range was relaunched with a new livery and a rather more serious demeanour.
The ten-year-old is the workhorse of that range. It is made in the old-fashioned way — Glenturret is one of the last distilleries in Scotland to mash by hand — and the spirit character that emerges is true to the Highland manner: light of body but unmistakably malty, with the clean orchard fruit that a long fermentation and copper-rich stills tend to yield.
The nose leads with apple and pear, barley sugar and a wisp of honey, with a grassy top-note that keeps matters brisk. The palate is of a piece — light, honeyed, cereal-forward, with mild spice rather than heat — and the finish is clean, unfussy and appropriately dry. It is not a whisky that seeks to overwhelm, but it is one that carries its long history with quiet authority, and it rewards the drinker who takes it on its own measured terms.
