Inchgower 22 Years Old 1997 Cask #2 (Signatory)

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. Signatory, the long established Edinburgh independent, selected this single cask, distilled in 1997, from the distillery's United Distillers and early Diageo era, and released it at 22 years old in its Cask Strength Collection range. Single cask 2 gave 703 bottles, released for Europe.

The distillery's spirit is built for body rather than elegance, nutty and waxy with a coastal salt note unusual for Speyside. This bottling matured in an ex-Bourbon cask with a finish in an Oloroso sherry cask.

Bottled at its natural cask strength of 59.7%, without dilution, the refill ex-Bourbon oak works gently, vanillin reading as vanilla and furfural as a faint toasted almond, and the Oloroso wood gives dried fruit, melanoidins reading as fig and raisin with tannins adding a walnut dryness. At 22 years the long maturation has deepened the spirit, the oak adding weight to its savoury core. The recorded notes run to fresh orchard fruit, honey, stewed fruit, green, leafy notes, fresh oak and citrus.