Whisky: North of Scotland 43 Year (1971), Pearls of Scotland

Country/Region: Scotland/Lowland Grain

ABV: 43.6%

Cask: Oak

Age: 43 Years (Distilled Dec. 1971, Bottled April 2015)

Nose: Brown sugar and caramel with hints of lacquered musty wood and dried dates, plum pits, sun-cured vanilla beans, treacle, and hints of sliced white pineapple.

Palate: Medium-bodied with rich caramelized sugars, treacle, flambéed bananas, flan, vanilla, crème brûlée, ‘Nilla wafers, oak, more subtle notions of banana and canned mandarin orange.

Finish: Long and lingering with oak, brown sugar, lacquered wood, and hints of raisins.

Score: 6

Mental Image: Tableside Dessert Production

Narrative & Notes: With one of the most unimaginative distillery names possible, one could be forgiven for thinking the ghost grain distillery was somewhere in the highlands. It was in the north, but just the far north of the lowlands in Cambus. The distillery shuttered in 1980, making it, retrospectively, a canary in the coal mine for the whisky loch that followed a few short years later. The site was sold to DLC (the forerunner of Diageo), who repurposed some of the equipment for Cambus, their nearby grain distillery in the namesake town, and continue to use the warehousing to mature whisky.

While the distillery shuttered over forty years ago, it is not hard to find releases of it bottled in the last decade or so. Considering the price-to-age ratio, grain whiskies can be a very attractive way to try old distillate without breaking the bank. Grain whiskies also tend to perform better over long maturations, especially as most grain distilleries just put their whisky in whatever casks they had on hand, typically the knackered hand-me-downs from other distilleries.

I thought this was really lovely— certainly one of the fruitier grain whiskies I have ever encountered. It also had all the caramel, oak, and crème brûlée one could want from a very mature grain. The finish was particularly lovely and clung to the palate for quite a while after each sip. I cannot say I will be rushing out to find more North of Scotland, but I certainly would not turn down an opportunity to try more in the unlikely event it came up.

Image Credit: Whisky Auctioneer