Tomatin Selected Single Cask Bottling 18 Years Old 1999

This official Tomatin single malt, an 18 year old release from 1999, drawn from cask 3171 and bottled at 57.1%. 201 bottles in all. Tomatin, founded in 1897 in the Highland village of the same name, was once Scotland's largest malt distillery. The core is unpeated, with peated spirit made one week a year and bottled as Cu Bocan.

The spirit was run through the distillery's onion stills after a long fermentation, to build a fruity, gently spiced character. It rested in ex-Bourbon oak for a honeyed sweetness. By this age the soft spirit rounds into orchard fruit and a gentle oak. The soft, fruity spirit takes cask character readily across maturation. An old cattle drovers' road ran through Tomatin, and whisky was made here long before the distillery. The arrival of the Highland Railway in the 1890s made the distillery possible. It closed in 1906 and reopened in 1909, finding its feet over the following decades.

Bottled at a cask strength 57.1%, it is rich. Orchard fruit and a gentle malt, and honeyed vanilla comes through from the ex-Bourbon. It is gentle and fruity, the soft spirit shining through. A fruity, lightly spiced finish lingers. This is the soft, fruity Highland malt of Tomatin.