Cambus 27 Years Old 1983 Cask #701513 (Dead Whisky Society)

Bottled by Dead Whisky Society, this Cambus matured to 27 year old distilled in 1983, from cask 701513 and bottled at 51.6%. Just 217 bottles were filled. Cambus was a Lowland grain distillery on the River Devon in Clackmannanshire, founded around 1806 and closed in 1993. Closed in 1993, the site is now a Diageo cooperage beside the Blackgrange warehouses.

The spirit was run off the distillery's continuous column stills, to build a soft, sweet grain character. An ex-Bourbon barrel shaped it, American oak giving coconut and toffee. Beyond twenty five years the grain grows deep and oily, coconut, butterscotch and crème brûlée over polished oak. Years in oak deepen the toffee and crème brûlée notes of aged grain. Alfred Barnard visited in 1885, noting six huge warehouses holding seventeen thousand casks. A fire destroyed the distillery in 1914; it was rebuilt and resumed in the late 1930s.

At a full 51.6% it is intense yet sweet. The ex-Bourbon gives sweet vanilla and a buttery coconut. It is clean and sweet, the grain spirit shining through. Crème brûlée and oak draw out the close. This is an old single grain from a closed Lowland distillery.