North Port Brechin 25 Years Old 1981 (Gordon & MacPhail)

This Connoisseurs Choice 25 year old takes a sherried turn, a 1981 Brechin vintage that Gordon & MacPhail matured in Oloroso rather than the usual bourbon wood and released for the UK market. The spirit comes from North Port in Angus, the Guthrie family's 1820 Highland distillery, one of the final years vintages before DCL closed the plant in the 1983 cull.

Twenty five years in Oloroso sherry casks gave the dry, light make a deep, dried fruit character it rarely showed in bourbon wood. The cask's melanoidins, built up during the sherry seasoning, drove the whisky toward raisin and nutty depth, the sherry tannins adding grip while the long maturation settled everything into a rich oxidative maturity. The sherry seasoning soaked into the cask staves is what lays down those dark sugars over the years.

Bottled at 43%, the Oloroso leads but does not bury the spirit. Raisin and a walnut note come from the sherry melanoidins, a touch of date from residual sugars, and a little vanillin from the wood lends vanilla beneath the dried fruit. The sherry softens North Port's juniper edge into something rounder and warmer, the finish long and nutty, a sherried relic of a vanished Highland name.