Carsebridge 48 Years Old LiSo (Living Souls)

Living Souls bottled this Carsebridge single grain, a 48 year old, bottled at 40.2%. Carsebridge, by 1980 the largest grain distillery in Scotland, was closed three years later. Its cooperage outlived the distillery, working until 2011 when it moved to Cambus.

Drawn from Coffey stills on Gartmorn Dam water, giving a clean, mellow grain whisky. A bourbon hogshead held it, the long maturation drawing out a buttery coconut. Ethereal and old, oak lactones give a profound coconut and vanillin a waxy vanilla, over tropical fruit and mellow oak. The high strength spirit mellows slowly into a soft, sweet old grain. Continuous distillation gives a light, clean spirit, so decades in oak drive much of the flavour. Long ageing turns light grain into a deep, oily, dessert sweet whisky. Light grain takes oak readily, the ex-Bourbon lending coconut and vanilla over many years. No new spirit will follow it, the stills cold since 1983.

Bottled at 40.2%, it is rounded. The ex-Bourbon gives coconut from oak lactones and vanilla from vanillin, over a buttery toffee. It is clean and sweet, the old grain shining through. It finishes clean, sweet and buttery. This is a finite single grain from the lost Carsebridge distillery.