I’m sure that many of us see international travel as an excellent opportunity for acquiring whiskies. Buying a whisky at duty free has always felt guilt-free – after all, in an airport, normal rules seem not to apply – you no longer need to live to a budget, nor abide by any social norms governing the times at which having alcohol is socially acceptable. Duty-free is after all one of the most attractive places to wait for your flight. On a good day, you may even be plied with seemingly limitless free samples, which is absolutely fine even at 5AM, as it’s not like reaching your destination requires any form of sobriety. Editor’s note: pilots are advised to disregard this paragraph.

My last trip through London Gatwick resulted in an inevitable perusal of the ubiquitous duty-free alcohol purveyor. Within a minute of entering the shop, I knew what I was going to buy: the latest Aberlour A’bunadh was in stock. A’bunadh and I have enjoyed a loving relationship for over a decade now; each batch has been a sherry-infused delight – this is one whisky with which you can never go wrong. This makes what happened next only explainable through the madness of international travel. Despite having a bottle of Aberlour’s excellence in my hands, I allowed myself to be upsold.

The dram that turned my head was Glen Deveron’s Aged 20 Years, a whisky described by the salesman as “one you have to try before you die”. He assuaged my concern by reassuring me that it was sherry cask matured, and more than a match for anything that Aberlour had ever produced. My curiosity was piqued and, given that I was in an airport at an ungodly time of the morning, a mere extra £20 or so mattered for nothing. As such, I strolled off to board my flight with a bottle of 20-year-old Highland whisky in my carry-on and the slightest doubt in the back of my mind – had I made a mistake?

I knew very little about Glen Deveron before buying a bottle. It’s a relatively small brand from the MacDuff distillery near Banff. This isn’t entirely surprising: the distillery is owned by Dewar’s, with most of its production allocated towards blends. Interestingly, while the Glen Deveron 20 is still widely available online and at duty-free, the bottling no longer features on the Dewar’s website. Indeed, the entire Glen Deveron range seems to have now been reduced to a single in-production dram: a 10-year-old branded “The Deveron”. With that being the case, it’s probably time to examine the whisky before the remaining stocks run out.

Glen Deveron Aged 20 Years

Highland Single Malt Scotch Whisky distilled by John Dewar & Sons Ltd at the MacDuff Distillery

40% ABV. Cask not clear from the packaging: it mentions “generous amounts of…sherry oak casks”. Some websites suggest a mixture of sherry and bourbon casks.

Chill filtration and colouring were not declared. Some retailers online list it as both chill-filtered and artificially coloured.

£99.99 – Amazon (for a 1L bottle)

Nose: A good balance of fruit, sweetness, and spice. There are lighter notes of peach, apricot, raisin, and the obligatory boozy sultana from the sherry influence. Sweetness comes through from golden syrup, hobnob biscuit, vanilla, and Werther’s Original butterscotch. Finally, there is a spice influence from cracked black pepper, peppermint, and a cool menthol.

Palate: Toasted cereals, brown sugar, honey, and golden syrup were immediately apparent. There’s a citrus influence from caramelised orange zest or perhaps orange bitters, with a slight nuttiness – perhaps walnuts. Sherry notes aren’t as apparent on the palate as on the nose, although there is still a touch of sultana and raisin, accompanied by dried tropical fruits. A little heat and spice then come through: white pepper and peppermint. A little oily.

Finish: Relatively long. The peppermint and pepper slowly die away to leave lingering bitter honey and citrus.

Opinion: If I’m honest, I’m still annoyed that I didn’t buy that A’bunadh. It’s not that there’s a huge amount wrong with the Glen Deveron Aged 20 Years – it’s a good, relatively refined whisky – but, compared to the A’bunadh’s sherry punch, it’s utterly uninteresting. The dram is pretty well balanced – sweetness, fruit, and spice all play their parts well. The long maturation has developed a decent complexity of flavour as well. That’s the positives out of the way. At £100, I don’t expect just a “good” dram.

Although the packaging claims that it was matured using “generous amounts of fine, sherry-oak casks”, there seems to have been far less sherry influence than I would expect from a 20-year maturation. I suspect the casks in question may have been quite tired. Texturally, it’s too thin: I was hoping for a rich, luxurious mouth-coating creaminess, which just wasn’t there, likely as a result of chill-filtration and over-dilution.

While the presence of artificial colouring, the use of chill-filtration, and the choice of bottling strength being the legal minimum of 40% don’t necessarily define a whisky as being low quality, the choice to do all three of these for a whisky costing £100 is, to me, the wrong one. At that price point, there are a plethora of excellent whiskies available, all showing that careful attention has been given to bottling them at the optimal ABV, boasting of excellent casks, and increasingly avoiding the two legal adulterations to instead allow the spirit to really demonstrate its brilliance. What we have here instead is something bearing all the hallmarks of an entry-level dram, but just a bit older. If I’m brutally honest, the key selling point for this whisky seems to be the number printed on the packaging – this is all about the age statement and nothing else.

If I had picked this whisky up for around £40, I would have been impressed. At more than double that figure, the Glen Deveron Aged 20 Years fails to live up to expectations. This is certainly a product aimed at those who value the number written on a bottle more than the quality of its contents. It’s enough to make me want to steer clear of any offerings from the MacDuff distillery – and a certain duty-free shop in Gatwick airport – for some time. It’s simply not worth the price tag. Avoid.

3.5/10