Port Dundas 31 Years Old 1988 (Cadenhead’s)

From Cadenhead's comes this Port Dundas single grain, aged 31 year old, from 1988 and bottled at 51.3%. The outturn was 216 bottles. Built in 1811 above the city of Glasgow, Port Dundas grew into one of Scotland's great grain distilleries before being closed in 2010 just short of two centuries. Its spirit was the backbone of countless blends in the great age of Scotch.

Made on a wheat led mash with Loch Katrine water and made in patent column stills rather than pot stills, this is a clean grain spirit with little weight of its own. It was matured in a refill ex-Bourbon cask, letting the clean grain character speak. Three decades and more leave a concentrated, oaky grain of real rarity, mellow and fine. High strength off the still means the cask, not the spirit, leads the flavour.

At cask strength 51.3% it is muscular. Butterscotch and toffee from the toasted oak, lifted by a sweet vanilla from the wood and the lactones bring coconut and cream, over light citrus and a soft tropical lift. Banana and pineapple flicker through the creamy body. A creamy, lingering finish rounds it off. This is one of the last windows onto Port Dundas grain.