Craigellachie 10 Years Old 2014 100 Proof Edition #39 (Signatory)

This Craigellachie was bottled by the Pitlochry bottler Signatory Vintage, a 10 year old, distilled in 2014, bottled at 57.1%. Craigellachie is an old fashioned Speyside malt, full bodied and sulphurous in youth, tropical with age. The official range runs a thirteen, seventeen and twenty three year old, with rare older bottlings.

It was distilled for the heavy, meaty spirit Craigellachie is known for, to build a robust, sulphurous, full bodied character. A bourbon barrel held it, vanilla and a soft spice over the oily malt. In integration lactones (coconut) and vanillin (vanilla) knit with the malt, the worm tub weight softening to tropical fruit. Years in oak round the spirit, the worm tub weight turning to pineapple and wax. Worm tubs give little copper contact, so the new spirit is heavy and full, mellowing with time. It was rebuilt in 1965, but kept its worm tubs where most distilleries dropped them.

At 57.1%, undiluted, it is deep and fruity. Meaty malt, tropical fruit and a waxy oil, with a soft vanilla from the oak. The texture is full and oily, the fruit lifted by a meaty weight. The close is long, fruit over a meaty malt. This is one of Speyside's most robust single malts.