Inchgower 11 Years Old 2010 Cask #801364 (The Vintage Malt Whisky Co Ltd.)

Inchgower sits on the Moray Firth coast outside Buckie, a Speyside distillery in name whose malt is salty and savoury in a way the region's usually are not. The Vintage Malt Whisky Company, selected this single cask, distilled in 2010, and released it at 11 years old in its The Cooper's Choice range. Single cask 801364 gave 306 bottles, released for Europe.

Inchgower's four stills carry steeply angled lyne arms that hold back the heavier, oilier vapours, part of why the malt comes out nutty, waxy and faintly saline. This bottling matured in an ex-Bourbon cask with a finish in a Marsala wine cask.

Bottled at its natural cask strength of 54%, without dilution, the refill ex-Bourbon oak works gently, vanillin reading as vanilla and furfural as a faint toasted almond, and the Marsala wood adds caramelised brown sugar and dried fruit, with a faint nutty bitterness. At 11 years the wood and the salty, nutty spirit are roughly in balance. The recorded notes run to cocoa, fresh orchard fruit, honey, malt sweetness, a nutty note and vanilla.