Thompson Bros. Clarendon The Auld Alliance MMW 1984

Thompson Bros., the Scottish independent behind The Auld Alliance, bottled this 1984 Clarendon, marque MMW, as a single cask aged a full thirty-seven years in ex-bourbon and held at cask strength 62%. Clarendon is a Clarendon parish workhorse running pot and column, and at this extreme age its pot still character has been transformed into something concentrated and intense.

Distilled from molasses and aged continental-style, it noses on wood, nail polish, a synthetic funk and spice, the ester markers surviving decades in oak. The palate brings wood, ginger, dried dates and mango, the finish spicy and dry with allspice and caramel. At 62% after thirty-seven years the strength holds firm and the wood is deeply integrated, the dried fruit and solvent funk knitted together. Unsweetened and bottled from a single barrel, this is a rare, deeply aged Clarendon for collectors who want extreme maturity without losing the distillery's funky, spicy Jamaican core.