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The best whisky under £30: UK prices
Blended Scotch, bourbon, Irish whiskey and a Highland single malt under £30, chosen on age, strength, cask and style, with live prices from UK retailers.
The best whisky under £30 depends on the style you want: Robert Burns Blend for a blended Scotch, Maker’s Mark for a wheated bourbon at 45% ABV, plus Old Pulteney Harbour for a Highland single malt. Most whisky at this budget is blended Scotch, bourbon or Irish blended whiskey, and the picks below are grouped that way.
Blended Scotch
Blended Scotch combines single malt and single grain whisky, usually from several distilleries. Grain whisky is made in column stills and is lighter than malt, which is why blends tend to be mild at 40% ABV. See the wider blended whisky selection for other budgets.
Johnnie Walker Red Label: £21.19 at Master of Malt. A 70cl blended Scotch at 40% ABV with no age statement (NAS). It was built as a mixing blend, and its brighter, peppery style suits a highball with soda or ginger ale.
Robert Burns Blend: £26.95 at Master of Malt. A 70cl blended Scotch at 40% ABV from Isle of Arran Distillers, the company behind the Arran single malt. Its malt component includes whisky from Lochranza on Arran.
Whyte & Mackay Blended Scotch Whisky: £19.50 at Master of Malt. A 70cl NAS blend at 40% ABV. Whyte & Mackay describes it as triple matured, with the blended whisky married in sherry casks, so expect a sweeter, darker style than Red Label.
Johnnie Walker Red Label
40.0% ABV · 70cl
from £21.19 4 retailers
£26.14 delivered
Save up to £3.76
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Robert Burns Blend
40.0% ABV · 70cl
from £26.95 3 retailers
£31.90 delivered
Save up to £7.05
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Whyte & Mackay Blended Scotch Whisky 70cl
40.0% ABV · 70cl
from £19.50 1 retailer
£24.45 delivered
Compare pricesBourbon and American
Bourbon is American whiskey, but not every American whiskey is bourbon: the law sets the grain, the casks and the strength. All three below are Kentucky bourbons; compare them with the wider bourbon list.
Jim Beam: £19.50 at Master of Malt. A 70cl Kentucky straight bourbon at 40% ABV. Jim Beam says its White Label is aged for four years, twice the legal minimum for straight bourbon.
Four Roses Bourbon: £23.95 at Master of Malt. A 70cl Kentucky straight bourbon at 40% ABV. Four Roses makes ten recipes from two mash bills and five yeast strains, and this bottling blends several of the ten.
Jim Beam
40.0% ABV · 70cl
from £19.50 3 retailers
£24.45 delivered
Save up to £0.50
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Four Roses Bourbon
40.0% ABV · 70cl
from £23.95 4 retailers
£28.90 delivered
Save up to £13.05
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The Irish picks here are blended whiskeys, combining grain whiskey with malt or pot still whiskey. More bottles are listed on our Irish whiskey page.
Kilbeggan Traditional: £21.50 at Master of Malt. A 70cl blended Irish whiskey at 40% ABV. Kilbeggan, in County Westmeath, dates its distilling licence to 1757 and is among the oldest licensed distilleries in Ireland.
Slane Irish Whiskey: £24.60 at Tyndrum Whisky. A 70cl blend at 40% ABV from Slane Castle in County Meath. It is triple casked, in virgin oak, seasoned whiskey casks and oloroso sherry casks, which gives it more cask character than most Irish blends at this level.
Tullamore DEW: £24.09 at Master of Malt. A 70cl Irish blend at 40% ABV. It is triple distilled and combines grain, malt and pot still whiskey, the light, easy style most people associate with Irish whiskey. Whiskipedia explains triple distillation.
Kilbeggan Traditional
40.0% ABV · 70cl
from £21.50 2 retailers
£26.45 delivered
Save up to £6.45
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Slane Irish Whiskey
40.0% ABV · 70cl
from £24.60 5 retailers
£29.10 delivered
Save up to £7.35
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Tullamore DEW
40.0% ABV · 70cl
from £24.09 4 retailers
£29.04 delivered
Save up to £2.91
Compare pricesWhat you give up under £30
Age statements are uncommon here, and a bottle without one is not automatically worse. It simply tells you less about the youngest whisky in the blend or batch (Whiskipedia on no-age-statement whisky). Scotch may also contain plain caramel colouring (E150a) to standardise batch colour, which is permitted under the Scotch Whisky Regulations 2009 but tells you nothing about spirit quality.
Tax also takes a large share of a low-priced bottle. UK spirits duty is charged per litre of pure alcohol, so a 70cl bottle at 40% ABV pays the same duty whatever it costs, and VAT is added on top. That leaves little room for long age statements or elaborate packaging at this price. A bottle at 45% ABV, such as Maker’s Mark, pays proportionally more duty than one at 40%.
The table below shows duty and VAT as a share of the shelf price for every bottle we found in stock, grouped by price. The whisky tax calculator works it out for any bottle.
| Shelf price | Bottles | Median tax share | Range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under £20 | 4 | 44.6% | 28.7% to 66.8% |
| £20 to £30 | 18 | 54.3% | 28.6% to 70% |
| £30 to £50 | 113 | 41% | 25.6% to 53.3% |
| £50 to £100 | 161 | 33.3% | 26.7% to 42.4% |
| £100 and over | 139 | 21.8% | 16.8% to 29.9% |
Ready reckoner: tax in a 70cl bottle
| ABV | Duty | At £20 | At £30 | At £50 | At £100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 40% | £9.51 | 64% | 48% | 36% | 26% |
| 43% | £10.23 | 68% | 51% | 37% | 27% |
| 46% | £10.94 | 71% | 53% | 39% | 28% |
| 50% | £11.89 | 76% | 56% | 40% | 29% |
| 57% | £13.56 | 84% | 62% | 44% | 30% |
How we chose: check date and coverage
We compared in-stock offers from Abbey Whisky, DrinkSupermarket.com, Hard To Find Whisky, Loch Fyne Whiskies, Milroy’s of Soho, The Whisky Shop, Tyndrum Whisky and Whisky Me in our October 2026 catalogue checks. Loch Fyne Whiskies and The Whisky Shop count as one owner. Prices and stock change; the live table on each bottle page is current, and the retailer’s checkout price is the one that counts. Read how we compare prices.
Questions
Why does whisky under £30 cost less to produce?
What makes a whiskey bourbon?
What is the difference between blended Scotch and single malt?
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