North Port 18 Years Old 1976 (Cadenhead’s)

Bottled by Cadenhead's, Scotland's oldest independent bottler, this 18 year old captures North Port young and at full power. The 1976 vintage comes from the Brechin distillery in Angus, a Highland plant founded by the Guthrie family in 1820 and closed by DCL in 1983, its make almost always destined for blends rather than a single malt label of its own.

Maturation was in ex-Bourbon American oak, easy going refill wood that is low in tannin and lets a light distillery character show through. At eighteen years the whisky is moving from integration into oxidative maturity, the cask sweetness and the spirit's dry fruit settling together while the high strength keeps the whole profile sharp and lively.

Bottled at a hefty 61.4%, this is a vigorous take on a dry, ginny malt. Broken lignin yields a firm vanilla through vanillin, the oak lactones a creamy coconut note, and caramelised hemicellulose a touch of toffee over the crisp orchard fruit. Water tames the strength and lifts the juniper edge that ran through North Port's spirit, the finish long and clean, from a distillery demolished in 1994.