Clan Denny is one of the brands of Douglas Laing. Douglas Laing is an independent bottler that has a lot of ranges of bottles on the market like Old Malt Cask, Provenance, Douglas of Drumlanrig, Old & Rare, Big Peat and some others.

Clan Denny exists in two ways, the Single Grain whiskies and two Blended Malts. As a thank you for helping out the importer on Saturday evening of the Whisky Live Den Haag festival I got some ‘left overs’ sent home to try myself. This Blended Malt is one of them, and as you expect, it consists of Islay malts.

Nose:
Old wood smoke with an underlying youth in the whisky. Rather young and a little one dimensional. It does improve a bit if you give it a couple of minutes to breathe. Salty, grassy and heathery peat are all present, with some vanilla in the background.

Taste:
The palate is rather sharp, especially for dram at 46%. The grassiness is present as well but a bit richer than it was on the nose. Creamy with a bit of a greasy palate.

Finish:
The finish is quite short with a short revival after a few seconds. After that, the grassiness is king again.

What can I say? It’s definetly not a bad whisky, but on the other hand I don’t find it all that interesting either. The youth is rather pronounced and there isn’t much depth to explore. A very nice entry level dram, but I would put my money on a Caol Ila 12 or Laphroaig Quarter Cask. They’re at the same price level anyway.

Clan Denny Islay, Blended Malt, Douglas Laing, 46%, available at DH17 slijterijen for € 35.99.

Thanks to Elise (who used to work at Wine World Holland) for the sample!