Port Dundas 22 Years Old 2003 Cask #EXP1087 (Claxton’s)

Claxton's selected this single grain Port Dundas, 22 year old in the wood, from 2003, drawn from cask EXP1087 and bottled at 50%. A major grain distillery, Port Dundas was first run in 1811 beside the Forth and Clyde Canal in Glasgow and closed in 2010 after two hundred years. Diageo moved grain production to the expanded Cameronbridge in Fife, and Glasgow lost its giant.

Port Dundas made its whisky using wheat, malted barley and soft Loch Katrine water, distilled continuously in tall Coffey column stills to give a light grain spirit that takes oak quickly. It was matured in a first fill ex-Bourbon cask, the refill wood letting the spirit's sweetness show. Decades in wood take the light spirit into an oxidative maturity, full and gently waxy. With little of its own weight to fight, grain takes a cask's character readily.

At a natural 50% it is bold and full. The lactones add coconut, vanillin from the lignin gives vanilla, and a rich toffee and fudge note, above the gentle grain sweetness beneath. The palate is gentle, sweet and slow, with no rough edges. The finish is long, sweet and softly oaky. This is a stock that can only shrink from here.