The Seven Best Scotch Whiskies For Under $75

By Richard Thomas

Scotch whisky is known for being at least a little more expensive than American, Canadian or even Irish whiskeys, but that doesn’t mean you can’t buy some outstanding quality at a fairly reasonable price. Premium whiskies are, almost by definition, pricey, but the Scotch whiskies listed here aren’t painfully expensive and offer serious quality for the asking price. Indeed, many of Scotch’s flagship expressions lie in the $50 to $75 range, and all seven of these whiskies have devoted fan followings, sometimes large followings.

As usual at The Whiskey Reviewer, this list was drawn up with input from not just our staff, but also our readers and outside experts.

The Arran 14 ($60)
Released in 2010, the 14 Year Old version of Isle of Arran’s malt replaced the 12 Year Old as their flagship expression. Drawing on a mix of stock from first-fill bourbon and sherry casks, it was bottled at a respectable 46% ABV and stands as a sweet, malty, fruity whisky. The expression has developed a devoted fan following, and is one of the cheaper single malts listed here.

Auchentoshan Three Wood ($70)
This distillery is perhaps best known for producing “Irish Scotch,” because it uses the characteristically Irish practice of triple distillation, and is the only distillery in Scotland at present using that technique. Another oddity is that typically when a malt is labeled a three or four (or even five!) wood, it is blended from stock drawn from that many cask types. Auchentoshan took a different (and more costly) route of taking whisky aged in bourbon barrels, finishing it in Oloroso Sherry casks and then giving it a second finish in Pedro Ximénez Sherry casks. So, one could also call it a double Sherry finish if they wanted to! That double finish has given the whisky a rich fruitiness and attracted plenty of Sherried whisky lovers to its banner.

The Balvenie 14 Year Old Caribbean Cask ($70)
Another single malt with a serious fan following is this rum-finished malt from The Balvenie. The fruity notes of The Balvenie’s spirit and the vanilla notes from its bourbon barrel aging are enhanced by the extra sweetness the rum cask layers onto it. The result leans strongly to the sweet side, but is still a very well rounded whisky.

Compass Box The Spice Tree ($60)
This expression was at the center of the first run-in John Glaser and Compass Box had with the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA). The original version of The Spice Tree received additional aging with stave inserts of French oak placed in the cask, that wood being known for its spicy notes. Maker’s 46 is made in a  very similar fashion. However the SWA, a trade body known for its conservatism, vetoed this technique as being not-Scotch, so Compass Box had to go back to the drawing board and produce a new version using French oak barrel heads. It’s close to the original, and if you like your whisky spicy, this vatted malt is a good buy.

The Glenfiddich 15 Year Old ($65)
This single malt, in my experience anyway, appears more than any other single malt on lists of premium, go-to Scotch whiskies, because it offers prime value for its price point. Living whisky-making legend David Stewart made this expression his experiment in bringing the Solera system to single malt whisky, whereby one maintains what is essentially an oak vat of whisky, continually topped up with new 15 year old stock drawn from casks made from either new oak or Sherry casks. The result is a revolving, secondary maturation with a tiny fraction of the whisky therein dating back to as far as the first batch of 15 Year Old malt poured in back in 1998!

Laphroaig 10 Year Old Cask Strength ($70)
Instead of sweet or Sherried or spicy, let’s say you want a single malt that turns hard onto peaty turf. You could go with the ever popular Laphroaig Quarter Cask at this price point, but a much better choice is a genuine peat bomb like the immensely popular Laphroaig 10 Year Old Cask Strength. It’s not hard to see why: this expression takes the popular, smoky profile of Laphroaig at a decent level of maturation, and bottles it in the middle 50s ABV.

Oban 14 Year Old ($65)
This entry from the Highlands is one of Diageo’s “Classic Malts” and practically embodies the concept of a well-rounded, neatly balanced single malt. It’s predominately fruity and malty, but carries a strong whiff of smoke and a dollop of heather.

Talisker 10 Year Old ($55)
Another one of Diageo’s “Classic Malts,” this one is the standard bearer for the Isle of Skye’s only distillery. As an island whisky, it’s unsurprisingly smoky and a little saline, the islands being almost synonymous with peat and sea spray. It’s the spiciness of Talisker that separates it from other smoky whiskies, and, on top of that, this is the cheapest whisky to make the cut for this list.