Best Whisky in Every UK Supermarket 2026: One Bottle Per Shop

You're standing in the supermarket whisky aisle. There's a bottle of Famous Grouse at £18, a Glenfiddich 12 at £35, four own-labels with awards stickers, and you've got dinner to start in 40 minutes. You don't want to read 3,000 words about cask types. You want one bottle. That's what this guide is for: one whisky in each major UK supermarket that's genuinely worth the money, with the honest reason why.

For the £-per-unit-of-alcohol view of any bottle in the table below, plug it into our whisky value calculator.

The one-bottle picks

Supermarket	Pick	Price	Why
Aldi	Glen Marnoch Sherry Cask	£17.99	Best supermarket own-label single malt — sherry weight at half the named-brand price
Lidl	Ben Bracken Islay	£19.99	The only sub-£20 peated single malt that doesn't taste cheap
Tesco	Tamnavulin Double Cask	~£22	Speyside single malt at blended-Scotch money; almost always on offer at Tesco
Sainsbury's	Highland Park 12 (when on offer)	£28–30	Sainsbury's runs this offer 3–4 times a year — set a price alert
Morrisons	Tamnavulin Double Cask	£20	Morrisons usually has the lowest shelf price on this bottle in the UK
M&S	M&S Collection Speyside Single Malt	~£28	The most polished supermarket own-label single malt; sourced from a name-brand Speyside
Waitrose	Aberlour 10	~£32	Waitrose stocks Aberlour 10 (rarer in supermarkets); discount runs in winter
Co-op	Famous Grouse	~£18	Co-op doesn't do single malts well; the safe pick is the blended classic

The thing this table tells you: the best supermarket whisky in each store is rarely the most expensive one. Aldi and Lidl beat themselves with their own-label single malts. Tesco and Morrisons win with the same Tamnavulin bottle. Waitrose's win is stocking something other supermarkets don't.

Aldi: Glen Marnoch Sherry Cask (£17.99)

The single best bottle we've tasted under £20 from any supermarket. It's a Speyside single malt finished in sherry casks at the bottling plant, and the result has more weight, more dried-fruit character, and a longer finish than it has any right to at this price. Aldi's range rotates around 6-8 bottles year-round and runs cask-strength single-cask specials at Christmas — but the Sherry Cask is the constant.

If you want a £18 bottle that will compete blind with £35–40 named-brand sherried Speysides: this one.

Full Aldi range review: Every Aldi whisky I tried.

Lidl: Ben Bracken Islay (£19.99)

Lidl's Speyside Ben Bracken is fine. The bottle that justifies the trip to Lidl is the peated Islay-style Ben Bracken — a £20 single malt with proper smoke, light medicinal coastal character, and a clean finish. It's not Laphroaig and it's not pretending to be. But for someone who wants to try Islay-style smoke at a fraction of the £45 entry point on a named-brand Islay, this is the most generous version of the experience the supermarket aisle offers.

Full Lidl range review: I tried every Lidl whisky.

Tesco: Tamnavulin Double Cask (£22)

Tesco's own-label range (Tesco Finest) is not the best supermarket own-label whisky — it's been variable for years. But the bottle to look for in any Tesco is Tamnavulin Double Cask — a name-brand Speyside single malt at 40% ABV that Tesco prices at £22 most of the time and drops to £18–20 on offer. It's a clean, accessible Speyside with sherry-finish weight, and it's the single best £20 single malt we know of that you can find in a normal supermarket.

It's also stocked at Morrisons and Sainsbury's at a similar price — but Tesco runs the offer most reliably.

Sainsbury's: Highland Park 12 (£28–30 on offer)

Sainsbury's owns the rest of the £30-and-up supermarket landscape with predictable offers on premium single malts. The one to wait for is Highland Park 12 — RRP £35, but Sainsbury's runs it down to £28–30 three or four times a year. At £28, this is the best value the supermarket aisle offers anywhere: a maritime-leaning, lightly-peated Orkney single malt that's a benchmark on most whisky shelves.

Set a price tracker on it. When it drops, buy two.

Morrisons: Tamnavulin Double Cask (£20)

Morrisons consistently has the lowest shelf price on Tamnavulin Double Cask in the UK — typically £20 standard, occasionally £18 on offer. Same bottle as the Tesco pick above. Same reason: a Speyside single malt for blended-Scotch money. Morrisons The Best own-label range is OK but not the reason to come to Morrisons; the Tamnavulin price is.

M&S: M&S Collection Speyside Single Malt (£28)

M&S has the most polished supermarket own-label single malt experience — the M&S Collection Speyside is sourced from a name-brand Speyside (industry speculation: Glenrothes or Glenmorangie, neither confirmed) and bottled with the sort of attention to presentation that the discounters don't bother with. At £28 it's not the cheapest, but if you want an own-label single malt that you wouldn't mind serving to a guest who notices the bottle, M&S is the answer.

Waitrose: Aberlour 10 (£32)

Waitrose is the supermarket that stocks the things others don't. The pick: Aberlour 10 — a sherry-weight Speyside single malt at 40% ABV that's harder to find in Tesco/Sainsbury's/Morrisons. Waitrose normally runs it at £32 and drops it to £26–28 in winter. If you want something genuinely interesting that other supermarket shoppers haven't tried: this.

Waitrose also stocks more independent-bottler small-run single malts (Wemyss, Adelphi, Compass Box) than other supermarkets — worth browsing if you're already in-store.

Co-op: Famous Grouse (£18)

Co-op doesn't do supermarket whisky well. The own-label range is thin, the named-brand single-malt range is thinner, and the prices aren't competitive with Tesco/Morrisons on the same bottles. If you're in a Co-op and you want a whisky, the honest answer is Famous Grouse at the usual £18 — Scotland's everyday blended Scotch and the safest pick when the alternatives are limited. It's not exciting; it's fine. Drink it with ginger ale or in a hot toddy and don't overthink it.

The bottle to avoid in every supermarket

Across the board, the one category to ignore is branded blended Scotch over £25 — anything labelled "12 year old blend" or "premium blended Scotch" at £25–35. At that price point you're paying for packaging and marketing, not better whisky. For £25–35 you can buy a genuine entry-level single malt (Glenfiddich 12, Glen Moray 12, Tamnavulin Double Cask, Aberlour 10) which will be a meaningfully better drink than any "premium blend" at the same price.

What we'd avoid altogether

• Anything with a heavily decorated bottle and no age statement. The bottle is the budget.
• "Special edition" supermarket exclusives over £30. If it's a one-off and unverifiable, it's marketing.
• The £18-£22 blended Scotch tier unless it's Famous Grouse, Monkey Shoulder, or Whyte & Mackay. The named brands in this tier are competent; the unbranded "premium blends" usually aren't.

The honest summary

If you have a choice of any UK supermarket and you want the single best £20-or-under whisky bottle: Aldi Glen Marnoch Sherry Cask is the answer.

If you want the supermarket-aisle deal that comes closest to genuine premium whisky: wait for Sainsbury's Highland Park 12 at £28–30.

If you want a single malt for the same money as a blend: Tamnavulin Double Cask at Morrisons (£20).

Most of supermarket whisky is fine. Almost all of it punches above its price. The category is genuinely competitive — most "supermarket whisky is bad" snobbery is several decades out of date. Pick a bottle from the list above and pour yourself a dram.

For deeper reviews of the Aldi and Lidl ranges (every bottle blind-tasted), see I tried every Aldi whisky and the full Lidl line-up. For more detailed pricing and current deals across all six major UK supermarkets, see our supermarket whisky deals guide.