Pittyvaich 30 Years Old 1989 Special Release 2020

Bottled at a natural 50.8% in 2020, this 30 year old was the year's Diageo Special Release, drawn from the 1989 vintage in an outturn of 7020. Reaching thirty years is a landmark for any whisky, and for a distillery that closed in 1993 and was demolished in 2002 it marks a near final chapter of the well regarded 1989 stock that has carried so many of these prestige bottlings.

Three decades in ex-Bourbon American oak carry the spirit into an oxidative and evaporative maturity. The angel's share has slowly concentrated the liquid and softened the strength toward the low fifties, while the refill oak, long past its most aggressive extraction, lets the light Speyside make hold its shape and brightness into great age rather than drying into tannin.

At 50.8% it is mellow and deep. Lignin gives a soft vanilla, the oak lactones a faint coconut, and the years build a waxy weight, fresh orchard fruit and a citric brightness over old oak. The finish is long and gently fading, the mark of a spirit grown fragile and fine, a thirty year record of a distillery that no longer stands. Bottles like this are how its prized 1989 vintage will be remembered.