North Port Brechin 29 Years Old 1975 Cask #2961 (Signatory Vintage)

Bottled by Signatory Vintage under the original Brechin name, this 29 year old is a single ex-Bourbon cask numbered 2961, released for the Italian market in an outturn of 185 bottles. The 1975 vintage was distilled at North Port in Angus, the Highland distillery the Guthrie family founded in 1820 and DCL closed in 1983, its spirit a rare sight outside the blends it usually fed.

Twenty nine years in a single ex-Bourbon barrel carried the dry, light malt into late oxidative maturity. The orchard fruit baked down into a deeper, richer profile, a waxy texture built up and the first dry old oak notes appeared, the cask working steadily while the strength held firm at natural power. Single cask ageing kept every quirk of this one barrel intact right across the twenty nine years.

Bottled at 57.5%, it shows real intensity for its age. The wood lends vanilla as lignin turns to vanillin, a coconut and cream note from the oak lactones, and slow oxidation a beeswax depth over North Port's dry fruit and faint juniper. The tannins are firm but clean and the finish runs long and warming, a single cask Brechin record of a demolished Highland distillery.