People sometimes forget single malt is a newer product than Blended Whisky. Indeed, Blended Whisky was just whisky back in the day. In my write up on the Johnnie Walker brand I talk about the greengrocers of the day making their own whisky products from blending parcels they bought from distilleries. Equally distillery owners saw their business as B2B with only owners of multiple sites using their produce to make end products to the market.

Ardray is an example of exactly this type of producer. Ardray is a brand owned by Beam Suntory and created by a team of blenders from the Japanese company. In their stable they have brands like Bowmore, Laphroaig, Auchentoshan and Ardmore but the components of this Ardray include whiskies from Edringtons stable as well (Macallan, Highland Park and until a few years ago Glenrothes).

The brand is positioned to be a premium blend which is targeted at the more traditional single malt drinker. The marketing talks about taking a fresh perspective on blended whisky using the mastery of technique of Japanese blenders.

The Whisky

The brand website describes the recipe as including only a handful of distilleries but a wide array of age statements going up to 20 years of age. This would at least help to explain the optimistic price tag in the £50-£60 bracket which is heavily congested with some very good single malts and even better blended malts. To compete as a blend this will need to be some ninja grade blending.

Tasting Notes

Colour	very pale yellow
Nose	pears, custard cream biscuits with some tart cooking apples and a little dirty sooty smoke
Palate	sweet approach with some subtle light peat smoke. Actually, its very well integrated smoke you could mistake for charred refill bourbon barrels
Finish	menthol cigarettes and some citrus zestiness

Where Can I Buy?

Master of Malt – Ardray Gift Set

Final Thoughts

The giftset in the link above is a nice Christmas gift that would work great for someone. The actual whisky is ok, I don’t do scores but if I did it would be like 7.5/10.