Glen Scotia Single Cask #19/660-5 8 Years Old 2012 (Tawny Port)

An 8 year old Glen Scotia, a distillery bottling, from 2012, cask 19/660-5, at 54.3%, 328 bottles in all. Glen Scotia is a Campbeltown single malt known for sea salt, oil and a salted toffee. The Glen was added to the Scotia name around 1930, the distillery dating to 1832.

Made on Crosshill Loch water in the heart of Campbeltown, building the Campbeltown Glen Scotia style. A Tawny Port cask held it, shaping the coastal spirit over the years. In these extractive early years the oak gives vanillin as vanilla and oak lactones as coconut over a briny, oily spirit. Long ageing turns the fresh citrus towards dried fruit, salted toffee and a soft spice. It sits on High Street in Campbeltown, on the Kintyre peninsula on the west coast. It has been owned by the Loch Lomond Group since the 1990s, after many changes of hands. Campbeltown, the Wee Toon, once held some thirty distilleries and was the whisky capital of the world.

Bottled at a cask strength 54.3%, it is rich. Sea salt, oil and a salted toffee, with a nutty, raisined red fruit from the cask. It is oily and briny, the coastal spirit shining through. The finish runs long, oily and coastal. This is the oily, salted malt of the Wee Toon.