Dumbarton 1987 Inverleven Stills Closed Distilleries (Cadenhead’s)

Inverleven was a malt distillery built inside the vast Dumbarton grain complex, and Cadenhead's labels this 1987 release for the Inverleven stills that produced it. The Aberdeen house, Scotland's oldest independent bottler, placed it in its Closed Distilleries range, an outturn of 240 bottles for Belgium at 27 years old.

Hiram Walker built Inverleven in 1938 to feed the Ballantine's blend, its pot stills the first in Scotch to be steam-heated rather than direct-fired. The stills fell silent in 1991 and the site was later demolished, so what survives in cask is all there will ever be. Matured in ex-Bourbon oak, the wood shapes a light Lowland spirit over nearly three decades.

Bottled at its natural cask strength of 53.9%. The ex-Bourbon wood gives vanillin for vanilla and oak lactones for coconut, with maltol for toffee. Time has turned the spirit waxy and tropical, soft fruit over polished oak. A direct taste of a distillery that no longer exists.