Grangestone Rum Cask Finish Single Malt Scotch Whisky Review & Tasting Notes

Recently, I reviewed Grangestone 12 Highland Single Malt Scotch. If you’re unfamiliar with that, it is part of Total Wine & More’s Spirits Direct program. In other words, it is a “house” brand of whiskey. That’s not a knock on it; there are private-label whiskeys that perform splendidly.

 

One of my concerns with the Spirits Direct program is that you never quite know essential facts about its house-branded whiskeys in the program. You can ask, and they’ll tell you, “This is the same thing as [name brand].” On a side note, please don’t fall for that because it isn’t.

 

Part of that comes into play with the Grangestone line of whiskeys. The labels say, “The style & heritage of the Highland region.” It also states, “Highland Single Malt.” Legally, it can be called that; however, my detective work shows this is a Speyside from the Glen Grant Distillery. If you want to know how I got there, that’s all in the Grangestone 12 review.

 

Today’s review, however, is the Grangestone Rum Cask Finish. Grangestone uses first-fill Bourbon casks for aging. It carries no age statement, meaning that to meet the minimum requirements to be considered a Scotch, it must be at least three years. And, because it has no age statement, it is at least four to fit USA requirements.

 

It then goes through a second “maturation” process (finishing) in Caribbean rum casks. We don’t know which rum was used because, well, information with Spirits Direct stuff is typically obtuse.  We also don’t know how long the finishing process was.

 

We know that it has e150A caramel coloring, is bottled at 40% ABV (80°), and per the Total Wine & More website, a 750ml package runs $29.99. Additional sizes are available, including the 50ml I purchased for this review.

 

Let’s sew up the background and get to the #DrinkCurious part.

 

Appearance:  Poured neat in my Glencairn glass, this Scotch was a bright orange amber. A thin rim formed big, sticky droplets that hung to the wall. They eventually gave way to long, wavy legs.

 

Nose:  The first smell was sawdust. That’s typical of young Bourbon, often aged in smaller cooperage. I’m confident that I’ve never run into that with a Scotch before. I struggled to pick out the slightest hint of brown sugar that existed. Usually, molasses and brown sugar indicate a rum barrel finish and require no work to find it. But, I did discover caramel. There wasn’t much else, including typical Scotch notes. Drawing the air through my lips, I came across lemon peel and malt.

 

Palate:  The mouthfeel was soft with a medium body. There was honey and lemon peel on the front, with white pepper and caramel on the mid-palate. The back featured vanilla and oak. Again, there was nothing rum-like about this whisky.

 

Finish:  Chocolate was the stand-out flavor on the medium-length finish. Beneath that was pepper and baked apple. I was still waiting for the rum influence; it just never appeared.

 

Bottle, Bar, or Bust:  Part of me can’t help but wonder if this whisky was mislabeled and it is an entirely different Scotch. If that’s the case, then whatever the whisky is wasn’t very good. It tastes young. It is way too diluted. There’s no evidence this spent even five minutes in a rum cask. Don’t waste your time, don’t waste your money, because this one’s a Bust. Cheers!

 

My Simple, Easy-to-Understand Rating System

• Bottle = Buy It
• Bar = Try It
• Bust = Leave It

 

Whiskeyfellow encourages you to enjoy your whiskey as you see fit but begs you do so responsibly.