North Port Rare Malts Selection 23 Years Old 1971

North Port was one of those distilleries whose spirit almost never reached a label of its own, so this 23 year old stands out as a genuine owner's bottling. It was released by the distillery in the Rare Malts Selection from a 1971 vintage, drawn from the Highland plant at Brechin in Angus that the Guthrie family founded in 1820 and that DCL finally closed in the 1983 cull of surplus capacity, then demolished in 1994.

The light, dry spirit was filled into ex-Bourbon American oak and left for twenty three years to draw colour and sweetness from the soft, gentle wood. By this age spirit and cask have knitted into full oxidative maturity, the fresh fruit of the new make deepening into baked orchard fruit while the oak lends a waxy weight and a steady backbone beneath it.

Bottled at a natural 54.7%, it holds the dry, faintly ginny character that set North Port apart, an almost juniper edge running through the fruit. Vanillin from the broken down lignin gives vanilla, the oak lactones add a soft coconut note, and caramelised hemicellulose brings light toffee over the distillery's hallmark dry orchard fruit. The finish is long, crisp and clean, a finite glimpse of a Highland distillery that is now long gone.