Port Dundas 28 Years Old 1995 Cask #64932 (Signatory Vintage)

Signatory Vintage selected this single grain Port Dundas, 28 year old in the wood, from 1995, drawn from cask 64932 and bottled at 59.7%. Some 215 bottles were drawn. A major grain distillery, Port Dundas was opened in 1811 in the city of Glasgow and closed in 2010 after two hundred years. Its grain fed great blends such as Johnnie Walker and Haig for generations.

Grain whisky like this was distilled continuously in tall Coffey column stills using wheat, malted barley and soft Loch Katrine water, giving a soft, clean grain spirit. 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. The wood does most of the talking in grain whisky, which is why cask choice matters here.

At 59.7%, undiluted, it is concentrated. The oak lends a soft vanilla, with coconut and cream from the lactones and caramelised wood sugars a toffee sweetness, over the orchard and tropical fruit of mature grain. Soft orchard fruit sits behind the dessert sweetness. It fades slowly on vanilla and oak. This is a finite pour from a Glasgow distillery long gone.