Imperial 18 Years Old 1995 Cask #4892 (G&M)

Imperial spent most of its life supplying blends and rarely appeared as a single malt; since its 1998 closure and 2013 demolition, what survives is almost entirely independent bottlings. This single cask was filled in 1995 and bottled by Gordon & MacPhail at 18 years old, for its Reserve range. Single cask number 4892 yielded 617 bottles, released for Belgium.

Imperial ran four large copper pot stills at Carron and made a fruity Speyside spirit that mostly went into blends such as Teacher's and Ballantine's. This bottling matured in an ex-Oloroso sherry butt. Across 18 years, Oloroso is a fully oxidised sherry, so the wood entered the cask loaded with polyphenols and melanoidins, the latter reading as fig and raisin.

Bottled at its natural cask strength of 59.4%, without dilution, the ex-Oloroso wood gives dried fruit and a walnut dryness drawn from its tannins, with a leather and cocoa edge from slow oxidation. Recorded bottle notes run to cocoa, citrus, fresh orchard fruit, honey, leather and fresh oak. Imperial's esters persist underneath as stewed orchard fruit, into a dry, nutty finish.