Inchgower 1980

24 year old Speyside 60.4 % vol

1 of only 574 bottles from cask no. 14152

Inchgower Distillery is a long way from Speyside, although it adopts the appellation, perhaps on the justifiable ground of the style of the malt. This is bottled from an ex-sherry butt and has a gorgeous rose-wood colour and a heavy bead. There is a slight egg note on first sniff, but this soon becomes custard-like - crème brullee, with burnt sugar on top, to be exact – accompanied by prune juice and walnuts. Deep, increasingly complex, and typical of Spanish oak maturation. Water brings up moist sultanas and other mixed dried fruits; the burnt sugar is still there, as it dried out marzipan. The flavour at full strength is of sweet espresso coffee; it becomes more interesting and unusual at reduced strength: smooth and virile, with a sweet start giving way to a coffee-like, burnt-bitter finish.

 Gold Medal winner, Whisky Magazine Independent Bottlers' Challenge 2005

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