Pittyvaich 18 Years Old 1993 (Gordon & MacPhail)

This 18 year old is a Gordon and MacPhail Connoisseurs Choice, a 1993 vintage matured in Oloroso sherry and bottled at 43%. The 1993 distillation was Pittyvaich's last, the distillery falling silent that year amid an industry wide overcapacity, so this marks the very end of the make from a Speyside that Bell's built in 1974 and ran for barely eighteen years.

Maturation in Oloroso sherry shaped the whisky. Oloroso ages in open contact with air rather than under flor, building a dark, nutty depth, and at eighteen years the spirit has reached oxidative maturity, the sherry wood layering dried fruit and structure over the light Speyside spirit that lies beneath it.

At 43% it is rounded and savoury. The melanoidins of the Oloroso give fig, raisin and a walnut note, lignin lends vanilla, and the make's grassy malt holds underneath the sherry rather than disappearing into it. The finish is medium and gently nutty, a sherried bottling drawn from the distillery's final year of production. It was one of several distilleries closed in the early 1990s as the industry cut back, and sherry matured Pittyvaich is scarcer than the plain oak bottlings.