A new for me is the process of vacuum distillation, heard of it? Well if you’ve not it’s a thing where things happen and allows, apparently for more flavour to come out in the whisky, so there you go.

Grant’s have brought out a range of Travel Exclusives which I will be reviewing over the next couple of months and I’m starting with the 8 year old Blended Grain Oxygen 8.

I really like Grain whiskies, they offer a different experience to pot still whisky and often have more of a bourbon feel to them, this certainly does due to the 8 years in bourbon barrels and I was drawn to this because I’m a huge fan of Compass Box’s Hedonism which is also a blended grain. I assume although I’ve not asked this is Girvan Grain as William Grant owns Girvan.

Now this is slightly let down by the 40% ABV, if it was another six percent I’d say this whisky would be excellent rather than just good but let’s get down to my opinion shall we?

Nose. Vanilla, obviously, a grain whisky matured for nearly a decade in bourbon barrels is always going to have a strong vanilla presence, there’s a sweetness but also a dry wood feel, there’s also a strange synthetic sweetness happening which dies away with a drop of water. A touch of melted butter too.

Palate. Again vanilla, oak and a little clove. Lime leaves, white pepper and more clove.

Finish. Pepper lingers with oak, strawberry chews appear from nowhere and are a pleasant end to the glass.

This is interesting, hard to find and if priced right would sell well with the Grant’s fans I know, which are many by the way, it’s easy to mock Grant’s for offering a half decent cheap blend and those who drink it but I’ve recently polished off a bottle of Grant’s I got in a secret santa thing and thought it mixed well.

This also went well on a hot day with an ice ball.

Thanks to Rob at William Grant and Sons for hunting this down for me, I look forward to seeing this at auction some time so I can pick up a bottle.

The Captain.