Pittyvaich 28 Years Old 1989 Special Release 2018

This 28 year old, the 2018 Diageo Special Release, was bottled at a natural 52.1% from the 1989 vintage in an outturn of 4680. Pittyvaich ran for less than twenty years, raised on the Dufftown site in 1974 and silenced in 1993, and at twenty eight years this is among the older expressions Diageo has drawn from its remaining casks. Each Special Release thins a stock that can never be replaced.

Aged in ex-Bourbon American oak, the spirit sits at the edge of oxidative maturity moving toward an evaporative phase, where the slow loss of the angel's share concentrates the liquid year on year, around two percent of the cask lost annually. The refill oak works gently, preserving the distillery's grassy, citric character while adding the depth that nearly three decades of ageing bring.

At 52.1% it stays surprisingly fresh for its age. Lignin breakdown gives vanilla, the oak lactones a light coconut, and the long maturation lifts a leafy, citric note and fresh orchard fruit over a honeyed malt base. The finish is long and clean, the spirit holding its brightness despite the decades in wood, a hallmark of Pittyvaich's light Speyside make.