Port Dundas 24 Years Old 1996 Cask #128345 (Signatory Vintage)

From Signatory Vintage comes this Port Dundas single grain, 24 year old in the wood, from 1996, drawn from cask 128345 and bottled at 57.3%. Some 269 bottles were drawn. One of Scotland's great grain distilleries, Port Dundas was established in 1811 on the Glasgow canal and closed in 2010 just short of two centuries. 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 an ex-Bourbon barrel, wood that rounds the spirit gently. Decades in wood take the light spirit into an oxidative maturity, full and gently waxy. Distilled to a high strength, grain carries less congener weight than malt and matures in an oak led way.

At its natural 57.3% it is powerful. Creme brulee from the caramelised hemicellulose, lifted by the wood gives vanilla and a creamy coconut from the oak, over a clean, fruity grain base. A faint waxy note gives it weight on the tongue. It fades slowly on vanilla and oak. This is a stock that can only shrink from here.