With Glengoyne, buy it young or buy it dear

Six Glengoyne bottles carry a reading this week, and the shape of the range is a staircase. At the bottom, two honest drams priced close to their flavour-crowd, the ten whiskies the model rates nearest each on taste. Above them, four bottles that ask a steepening surcharge for age, for cask strength, for the oldest sherry casks in the warehouse. The brand's middle price this week is $168, which tells you this is not a cheap house to shop top to bottom. The sense, as so often, lives at the entry.

Glengoyne makes unpeated Highland whisky with a sherry leaning, and the model reads that sherry thread right up the range. The 10 Year Old is the plain statement of it: sweet, with a clear sherry note, nothing heavy. At $99 against a crowd near $98, it is priced within a dollar of its neighbours, about as level as a tag gets. This is the everyday Glengoyne, the one to pour without thinking, and it is the best value in the range by the simple measure of asking no more than the field.

The 12 Year Old is the small step up and the one most people reach for. Two more years bring a touch more shape, with cherry and a note of anise over the house sweetness. At $109 against a crowd near $100, it is about 9% over, a mild premium for the extra age and the better-known label. Between the 10 and the 12 you have the heart of what Glengoyne does, both priced within touching distance of their crowds, and either will serve as the bottle on the shelf at home.

Then the climb. The 15 Year Old is where the sherry deepens and the price starts to lean: ginger and toffee, leather, a darker fruit under the sweetness. At $162 against a crowd near $141, it is about 15% over, still a reasonable ask for a genuinely richer dram, and the last bottle in the range I would call fair rather than dear. Past it, the gaps double.

The Cask Strength bottling is the first of the big ones, and it earns part of its tag honestly. Bottled without the usual dilution, it is a bigger, hotter dram of sherry and wood, pepper and caramel, fruit and a berry edge. At $173 against a crowd near $87, it is about 99% over. Some of that gap is the strength itself, because the whiskies it is measured against are ordinary forty-percent bottles and a cask-strength malt gives you more spirit per pour. The rest is the premium Glengoyne attaches to the format, and it is a large rest.

At the top sit the 18 and the 21, and both are priced for occasions. The 18 is the sherried heart of the range turned up: chocolate and melon, grapefruit and fruitcake, rich and full. At $276 against a crowd near $136, it is about 103% over. The 21 is older still, creamy and honeyed, soft fruit under cinnamon and spice. At $361 against a crowd near $156, it asks about 131% over, the widest gap in the house. These are lovely whiskies and nobody who opens one will feel short-changed on the liquid. They are also priced well above the field, and that gap is the cost of two decades in a good cask and the scarcity around it, not a reflection of better value.

Stand back and the pattern is clean. Glengoyne charges for age and for strength, and it charges steeply. The 10 and 12 are priced to compete and the rest are priced to reward the distillery for holding stock a long time. There is nothing underhand in that, but it means the smart buying is concentrated right at the foot of the range, and the drinker who climbs is paying increasingly for the privilege rather than for a widening gap in quality.

Here is how to spend. For everyday sherried Highland malt, the 10 at $99 is the pick, priced level with its crowd, and the 12 at $109 is the small, fair step up if you want a bit more shape. The 15 at $162 is the top of the sensible range, a richer dram at a premium you can wave through. The Cask Strength at $173 is for drinkers who want the extra punch and understand that part of the gap is simply more spirit in the glass. The 18 at $276 and the 21 at $361 are special-occasion bottles, priced for age and scarcity; buy them for the experience, not the value. For most buyers, Glengoyne is a distillery to meet young.