Inchgower 12 Years Old 2009 Wood Range Sherry Cask (Cadenhead’s)

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. Cadenhead's, Scotland's oldest independent bottler, bottled this, distilled in 2009, and released it at 12 years old in its Wood Range - Sherry Cask range. The outturn was 288 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 Oloroso sherry cask.

Bottled at its natural cask strength of 54.7%, without dilution, the Oloroso wood gives dried fruit, melanoidins reading as fig and raisin with tannins adding a walnut dryness. At 12 years the wood and the salty, nutty spirit are roughly in balance.