Inchgower 38 Years Old 1965 Old & Rare The Platinum Selection (Douglas Laing)

Classed by Diageo among its nutty and spicy malts, Inchgower is the Manzanilla of Speyside, its coastal saltiness setting it apart from its floral neighbours. Douglas Laing, a Glasgow bottling house, bottled this, distilled in 1965, before the 1966 expansion that doubled Inchgower to four stills, and released it at 38 years old in its Old & Rare - The Platinum Selection range. The outturn was 432 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.

Bottled at its natural cask strength of 50.4%, without dilution, the refill ex-Bourbon oak works gently, vanillin reading as vanilla and furfural as a faint toasted almond. After 38 years in wood this is an old Inchgower, the cask now a dominant voice over the surviving saline character.