Dailuaine 14 Years Old 2009 Cask #306452 (Connoisseurs Choice)

From the Elgin house Gordon and MacPhail, a 14 year old Dailuaine, distilled in 2009, from cask 306452, bottled at 57.7%, one of 453 bottles. Dailuaine is a Diageo Speyside distillery, its robust malt the backbone of many a blend. Water comes from the Bailliemullich Burn, the spirit drawn off three wash and three spirit stills.

The spirit was distilled in large conical necked stills on Bailliemullich Burn water, building the heavy Dailuaine style. Maturation in an Oloroso cask laid dried fruit over the meaty, malty spirit. Integration folds eugenol (clove) and vanillin (vanilla) into the malt, the heavy body fuller and richer. The clean spirit shows the cask clearly, vanilla and fruit over a rich malt. Its big stills give a heavy, full bodied spirit that takes sherry wood especially well. It passed to DCL and Scottish Malt Distillers in the 1920s and was later modernised.

At a natural 57.7% it is full and honeyed. A heavy, malty fruitiness, with dried fruit, fig and walnut from the cask. Beneath it run dried fruit, malt and a savoury edge. The close is long, fruit over a rich malt. This is a rich, malty Speyside single malt.