Imperial 35 Years Old 1976 Cask #DL 7431 (Douglas Laing)

With Imperial demolished in 2013 and silent since 1998, bottlings like this are among the last records of a lost Speyside distillery. This single cask was filled in 1976 and bottled by Douglas Laing at 35 years old, for its The Old Malt Cask range. Single cask number DL 7431 yielded 443 bottles, released for Germany.

The distillery's large stills gave a clean spirit rich in esters, floral and faintly waxy, typical of Speyside before its closure. This bottling matured in an ex-Oloroso sherry butt. Across 35 years, Oloroso is a fully oxidised sherry, so the wood entered the cask loaded with polyphenols and melanoidins, the latter reading as fig and raisin.

Bottled at its natural cask strength of 50%, without dilution, the ex-Oloroso wood gives dried fruit and a walnut dryness drawn from its tannins, with a leather and cocoa edge from slow oxidation. Imperial's esters persist underneath as stewed orchard fruit, into a dry, nutty finish.