Caledonian 31 Years Old 1987 Cask #18504 (Signatory)

Caledonian was an Edinburgh grain distillery known as the Cally, built in 1855 near Haymarket station and the Union Canal. The seventh member of the Distillers Company from 1884, it was for a time the largest distillery in Scotland before closing in 1988. Signatory Vintage holds a parcel of its final 1987 casks, of which this is one, bottling them at natural strength as the stock slowly dwindles.

The light grain spirit was drawn off a continuous Coffey still and filled into a single ex-Bourbon cask. Decades in American oak turned the clean grain deep and oily, coconut and vanilla drawn from the wood. Bottled at its natural 50.2%, without chill filtration or colour. By the time Alfred Barnard visited in 1886 the Cally employed over two hundred people and made more than nine million litres a year.

At 31 years it is full and sweet, coconut, vanilla and toffee popcorn over a soft, oily body, with a grilled pineapple lift and a long, creamy finish. A characterful single cask from a distillery silent since 1988, its character fixed for good. Grain whisky of this age is prized for the way light spirit and active oak meet over the decades, the wood giving most of the flavour.