Whisky: Ledaig 29 Year (1993), The Single Cask Ltd. Cask 249

Country/Region: Scotland/Island

ABV: 44.0%

Cask: Barrel

Age: 29 Years (Distilled 5 Mar. 1993, Bottled 7 Mar. 2022)

Nose: Earthy with mellow, funky industrial leather and rubber, mothballs, slightly vegetal with roasted roots and chicory; my wife described it as dried mud on hiking boots.

Palate: Medium-bodied, oily, ginger and muddled herbs, earthy with hints of rubber, sarsaparilla and birch gave the impression of root beer, vanilla, birch, or orange cream soda, hints of lime and tangy mala sauce, underlying earthy turmeric, honey, and roasted root vegetables, new rubber erasers.

Finish: Very long with ginger and lemon.

Score: 8-9

Mental Image: Elementary School Eraser Collection

Narrative & Notes: Wild stuff— of the four sibling casks of 29-Year Ledaig in stock at The Single Cask, this one was selected by Yi Xian, one of the owners. He explained that, like my wife, he prefers dirty malts and does not mind a touch of rubber or sulfur in the flavor profile. He added that he’s also attracted to austere profiles that do not always appeal to everyone. As we went down the line of options, including a Ledaig clearly pretending to be an earthy-fruity Ben Nevis and another with an award to its name, my wife pointed out this one as the most unusual and, therefore, her preference for a pour.

The keen-eyed will no doubt notice the small bottle outrun from the barrel; someone else out there took half the cask, and I would love to know who so I know where to get more of this. Maturation in a barrel also set this malt apart from its siblings, which were all matured in slightly larger hogsheads.

I loved this Ledaig. It had a real vintage style flavor profile with layers of rubber and dirt— dirty hiking boots, my wife called it— which led to a combination of fruit and sweet spice between a root beer float and a tropical fruit punch. Rubber erasers remained a constant on the malt— but not as a rubbery funk on the palate; instead, it was something closer to the clean sweet rubber smell of a brand-new eraser, the kind you might have collected or traded with friends as a kid or still do.

Armed with some sweet elementary school nostalgia and a beautiful bouquet of contrasting but well-structured flavor notes, I thought this was an outstanding example of the vintage. It was also a great lesson in just how different sibling casks can be after a few years, or decades, of maturation.