hello multi-mandatory multi-minstrels and thank you to sabina sam and christian muller for
providing a mock mention for ralphie review 890. yeah nearly forgot which one it was there because
there's been so many welcome malt mates and whiskey fans to the bothy i'm your host ralphie i
am they'll get providing little malt moments and i have a malt here to assist in providing that
moment before i go any further just to let you know as a brief point of reference that here in
ralphie review 890 right up to 900 i'm going to be reviewing widely available easily recognized
accessible affordable single malts because for most of 2021 i've been having fairly long series
on independent bottlings but i do realize that not that many have access to these styles of bottlings
and importantly those some of those who do are only just starting in whiskey and perhaps
are really not ready for the greater smell and taste challenges that can come from independent
bottlings simply because of the integrity of their presentation so it's your standard whiskey's
like this which i would say are a good place to start they're perfectly decent and acceptable um
and i am going to give you a review of this devron 10 year old single malt whiskey from scotland
and they describe it on the label as a highland whisky but in fact it's from space side region
and you'll find that although fairly early on in your journey you get to know the different regions
and how the impact and profile and flavor and what your expectations might be of characteristics
there are a number of space side whiskey single malts which they don't mention space side in the
presentation as much as highland now for the record all space side whiskeys are highland
whiskeys however they are in the region of space side and technically should be named space side
whiskeys many are some aren't and this whole designation goes back to the early days
when master blenders and blending suites for the big whiskey companies would separate all
the single malts into different categories to make it easier to mix match and blend with
so there you have it something that's stuck
this whiskey is bottled at 40 percent and it's not necessarily the same devaron that you'll
see in the specialist whiskey shops that have the diamond shaped label this one's been bottled for
supermarkets and i bought it in a supermarket for about 25 pounds which i think is a fair price for
a young matured age-stated single malt sure it's bottled at 40 percent sure it's chill filtered
sure there's a little bit of caramel added but in my opinion not that much so i've poured a glass
i'm going to smell it and i'm going to taste it i'm going to tell you a little bit more about it
unpainted light fruity cereal lightly honey
slightly crispy in the nose just a hint of cask char vanilla definitely
simple and if i was to sum up this whiskey in one single word it's simple even in the nose
you're getting what i would describe as a very accessible whiskey for people who are
trying their first ever single malt it's even less demanding and less threatening
than glenn livett glenfink 12 year old there you go first taste
you don't have to add any water happily toffee slightly gingery
simple arrival simple development and a very swift finish i shall add a drop of water
but not much can i get a drip in this spoon a single drop ah two i'll be fine not going
to beat ourselves up about that a little bit more about well this is opening up a little bit
a little bit more about devaron this distillery is almost coastal it's very near the north coast
in the um the mori firth and um it's just south of the town of banff if you want to look up in a map
and on the left hand side of the distillery facing north you will find the river devon
after which this brand is named although it comes from macduff distillery and the reason
in my opinion and is just an opinion why they're calling it devron rather than mcduff is because
mcduff single malt when it appears from the independent bottlers is considered a non-event
and an uninspiring and non-aspirational rather like strathmill another good example
or spaceside another good example or spayburn another good example um or glenn keith great
example these are single malts which generally are of little interest to single malt drinkers
because they're characterless i'm just relying the message folks in this presentation i think that
the distillery is cashing in on the increased significantly increased demand for single malts
and whereas this would normally disappear into blends like deus um it's being presented as a
single malt because people are buying single malts and the distillery want to earn some
money due to this so by naming it devaron and particularly in the supermarket by giving it a
um sort of aquamarine type label which will make it stand out jump out color wise on a supermarket
shelf underneath that fluorescent lighting uh they're simply doing what any business would
do and making their product accessible so good for them as regards the uh rather anemic character and
i don't mean that judgmentally i mean objectively and i'll come back to this shortly in the taste um
macduff is a young distillery
it was built in the 1960s early 1960s in fact about 1962 so it's roughly about 60 years old
and as such it's a generation of distilleries that were built for convenience of location
and availability of land rather than being situated for the provenance of singular style
and character because as a distillery never needed it because it was built to become blend filler
to package out grain whiskey into scotch blended whiskey by being a malt component
that was never particularly taking the whiskey in any direction
so mission accomplished but you see this with many modern large distilleries
rose isle good example can envy another good example distilleries which were never
located in the position of feng shui or provenance they were located using other
calculation dynamics which are based on finance and expediency
and it's interesting that you don't see much in the way of single malts from either rose isle
or from caninvi they just don't really they're not out there if they were good single malts
in my opinion they would be out there but something can get lost in efficiency and scale
which is why larger distilleries i think struggle to find their identity compared to
smaller distilleries which often acquire theirs accidentally but anyway i'm starting to digress
away from this so back to the devil on here um i would say that the specialist bottle shops
when they carry the other bottlings of devron with the triang with the diamond shaped labels
you're actually getting a slightly more decent full whiskey um which is slightly better casks
behind it i think this has been a version that's been just strictly in the budget for supermarkets
and for mass retail no harm in it because as i mentioned briefly this is a clean refreshing
simple the key word here is a simple it's a simple single mop and frankly there's no
harm in that if you're just getting into your whiskey discovering single malt for the first
time and you don't want to be frightened with the likes of talisker or springbank or laphroaig
some people are frightened by them even after a few years experience
so back to the smell and taste of this before the multi mark
simple honest grain slightly honeyed
simple
sweet
certain development
sweet and toffeeed rather than honey toffeed in the arrival
interesting enough very palatable refreshingly honest to be honest i've got no i'm not going
to be a snob about it um i wouldn't rush to buy this whiskey again but hey
if i was starting out i'd thoroughly enjoy this and it's good to have a bottle of this to share
with people who are frightened of whiskey because there's nothing frightening about this finish
is very swift very sudden it's gone tiny little bit of gingeriness
a little bit of tannins bit of fresh mild grapefruit and green it's gone mark
it's not gonna blow your socks off but it will keep your boat afloat
a nice simple unpretentious honest
whiskey sure if it was bottled integrity style it would hugely improve it but we're not seeing
that so there we go more mark 81 out of a hundred malt mates for this single mott
hope you've enjoyed my review i hope you'll pop back again for ralphie review 890 extras
in which i will be talking a little bit more about this whiskey and my thoughts on it
just giving you a sort of general overview um and i'll just be slightly freewheeling it
because i've got things in the back of my mind which are really kind of worth bringing to the
i've not really discussed in a video before actually you know all the different permutations
of a single malt that's basically what it is but for any more information you're going to
have to watch that video it'll be along shortly in the meantime you take care of yourself bye