Pittyvaich 29 Years Old 1989 Special Release 2019

The 2019 Diageo Special Release was this 29 year old from 1989, bottled at a natural 51.4% in an outturn of 5568 and given a sherry treatment in Pedro Ximenez and Oloroso casks. Pittyvaich, built by Bell's in 1974 next to Dufftown and closed in 1993, is most often seen in plain ex-Bourbon oak, so this double sherry treatment is a distinctive and unusually rich entry in the Special Releases line.

After its long first ageing the spirit took on Pedro Ximenez and Oloroso casks, two oxidative sherry styles. Pedro Ximenez is pressed from sun dried grapes and leaves a heavy residual sugar in the wood, while Oloroso is aged in open contact with air to build nutty depth, and together at nearly thirty years they push the whisky deep into dried fruit and old wood while the light make holds underneath.

At 51.4% it is rich and savoury. The residual sugars of the Pedro Ximenez bring raisin, date and treacle, the melanoidins of the Oloroso add fig, walnut and chocolate, and the great age lends a tobacco leaf and old oak depth. The finish is long, dark and gently spiced, a sherried face of a normally pale Speyside spirit that few Pittyvaich bottlings ever show.