Oban 20 Years Old 1961 (Gordon & MacPhail)

This 20 year old is a remarkably old Oban, a 1961 vintage bottled around 1981 by Gordon & MacPhail of Elgin in its long running Connoisseurs Choice range. Independent bottlings of Oban from this era are very scarce, and it comes from the little distillery on the Oban shore that John and Hugh Stevenson set up in 1794.

The whisky was raised in ex-Bourbon American oak, two decades of ageing on a spirit distilled in an era of traditional production. Oban's make has always been built on slow distillation through the compact pot stills and cooled in worm tubs, the generous copper contact keeping the spirit clean and fruity before the long maturation. A spirit distilled in the early nineteen sixties and bottled two decades later is a window onto the distillery in an earlier era, when production ran much as it does now but on older equipment.

Reduced to 40% for bottling, it shows a delicate old age. Spent lignin in the oak gives a soft, faded vanilla, slow oxidation builds old oak and dried fruit, and Oban's honey and coastal salt have faded to a gentle thread. The smoke is light and the finish long, soft and elegant, a rare record of the distillery in the 1960s.