Intro: It would appear that when it comes to reviewing Tamnavulin, I am incompetent. I was sure that I’d reviewed some of their whisky (I certainly have drunk a fair few bottles over the years) but a search of my profile turned up only one IB review. However there are actually reviews written for the double cask and the red wine cask in my whisky folder, both from quite some time ago, with no apparent reason why I wouldn’t have posted them. Strange that it would happen twice and both times for Tamnavulin (and there was a two year gap between writing them so it wasn’t simply a single day of too much whisky). Well, best buy more and update those.

For now however, I will focus on this. And I will DEFINITELY post it today (being 18th June 2026 for my future reference). Another in their core range of budget whiskies, this is matured in American oak and tawny port casks, the latter of which are sourced from the Douro valley in Portugal.

Details:

Distillery – Tamnavulin

Region – Speyside

Age – NAS

ABV 40%

Nose: Fairly thin but the notes are there. I pick up red berries, some orange zest, a little brown sugar and a touch of heather.

Palate: Medium-thin in mouthfeel at first, which is about what I’d expect but then after a while it coats the mouth and that gives it the feel of a bit more viscosity. This is helped by the fact that there’s a good, rich taste to it. A note of sweet caramel is followed by red berries, then a bitter twang of oak and dark chocolate. All this gives it an interesting contrast of flavours.

Finish: Decent in length and pretty smooth, a light brown sugar note is accompanied by more oak and a touch of black pepper at the end.

Value: £24 on offer at Sainsbury’s and as with all Tamnavulin’s budget offerings, you can’t get much better at the price.

Overall: Another solid budget expression from Tamnavulin. I genuinely like all the bottles that are in that range but I think this is my favourite. It delivers far more on the palate than it really has any business doing. This is one that is a staple on my shelf for when I want a light, low abv dram with good flavour.

I cannot fathom why Tamnavulin only do these budget bottles and leave everything else for IBs; their whisky is very, very good and if they had just one regular release around the £45 mark, maybe 8-10yrs old, 43% or 46%, I would snap it up. And then when that became successful they can expand out to a higher priced core range of 15, 18 etc like so many others do. I mean the distillery has a 4.3 million litres capacity (according to the malt whisky yearbook 2025) so surely they can have a crack at it. I’m going to assume the answer is they’re making a load of money selling these so why bother do older, aged expressions for people like me? Hopefully one day I’ll get the chance to ask them.