Tobermory 18 Years Old 1996 Cask #HL 11235 (Old Malt Cask)

This is a Tobermory, released by Hunter Laing, an 18 year old from 1996, drawn from cask HL 11235 and bottled at 50%. Just 314 bottles were filled. Tobermory is the fruity, unpeated side of the only distillery on the Isle of Mull. Its history is famously broken, with long silences; the buildings once held holiday lets and stored cheese.

Run through the distillery's boil ball stills, to build a nutty, waxy, fruity character. Maturation came in ex-Bourbon wood, vanilla under the orchard fruit. By this age the oily spirit rounds into nutty fruit and a waxy depth. The unpeated make leans on the cask, the wood adding much of the colour and flavour. The stills carry boil bulbs and a kink in the lyne arms, which lifts the reflux. Water is drawn from a private hill loch, the Gearr Abhainn, above the town. Its painted home town gives the unpeated malt its name. A rare, more heavily peated make has appeared under the name Iona, after a neighbouring isle.

At cask strength 50% it is muscular. A waxy, oily fruitiness, and the ex-Bourbon lends vanilla and a soft honey. Beneath it run orchard fruit, wax and a soft nut. The finish runs fruity, nutty and warm. This is the waxy, fruity malt of Mull.