Port Dundas 15 Years Old 2004 Cask #DL 13748 (Douglas Laing)

Single grain Port Dundas, picked by Douglas Laing, aged 15 year old, from 2004, drawn from cask DL 13748 and bottled at 48.4%. 325 bottles in all. First run in 1811 beside the Forth and Clyde Canal in Glasgow, Port Dundas grew into a landmark Glasgow grain works before being closed and cleared after 2010. By the 1880s it was pouring out millions of gallons a year for the blenders.

The spirit was made in patent column stills rather than pot stills on a wheat led mash with Loch Katrine water, a soft, sweet make ideal for blending. A Pedro Ximenez cask shaped it, the sweet sherry pressed from sun dried grapes leaving a heavy raisined sugar in the wood. By this age grain takes on real character, the oak rounding it into a creamy whisky. Each year in the warehouse softened the spirit and deepened the cask sweetness.

Bottled without water at 48.4%, it is robust. The residual sugars of the Pedro Ximenez bring raisin, date and treacle, while the oak lends a soft vanilla, with coconut and cream from the lactones and caramelised wood sugars a toffee sweetness, over light citrus and a soft tropical lift. A touch of warm spice lifts the creamy body. The finish is creamy and slow to fade. This is grain from a Glasgow landmark that stands no more.