North Port Rare Malts Selection 20 Years Old 1979

This 20 year old belongs to the Rare Malts Selection, the United Distillers range that gave North Port its only appearance as an owner's single malt. The 1979 vintage was distilled in the Angus plant's last years of production, the Brechin distillery the Guthries had founded in 1820 and that DCL closed in the 1983 cull, then demolished in 1994 to make way for a supermarket.

It was matured in ex-Bourbon American oak and bottled at full cask strength after two decades. Twenty years places it firmly in oxidative maturity, the spirit and oak fully integrated, the dry orchard fruit of the new make rounded out and deepened by the wood while the high strength keeps everything taut, bright and lively.

Bottled at a fierce 61.2%, this is North Port with the volume turned up. The vanilla comes from vanillin as the lignin degrades, the coconut from the oak lactones, and a little water draws out the dry fruit and the juniper edge the distillery was famous for. The tannins stay clean and the finish runs long and warming, a powerful relic of a closed Highland name that was almost never bottled in its own lifetime.