Littlemill 1990 30y/o SMWS 97.23 ' Seductive Whispers of Oak' 58.2%ABV 15ml / 30ml

SMWS Notes:

An old-school malt of slowly emerging complexity and eye-twitching pleasure. The nose combined orange fondant and golden syrup sweetness with seductive whispers of oak (vanilla, sweetie tobacco and orange crates). On the palate, that whisper became a Carmina Burana chorus of church pews, leather, tobacco strands and spiced rum, cinnamon flambéed bananas, Grand Marnier, Sercial Madeira wine, spun sugar and toffee. The reduced nose was golden sunshine on late summer meadows; walnut toffee, barley sugars, jellybeans, chocolate ice-cream and champagne Bellini. The palate now – teasing oak, orange peel, sugary espresso dregs, heather honey and anise. A fabulous exotic journey.

Liquid history from Littlemill a 'dead' Lowland distillery. Matured in a first fill bourbon barrel for 30 years in 'the Vaults' of SMWS where the oldest and finest casks in the land are stored. Comes with a Black label and a chunky wooden box - this is fancy stuff and also bucket list whisky as there is limited stocks in existence. Personally, I used to  dislike Lowland whisky. I never liked Rosebank and Littlemill standard releases when they were available - a bit dull, light weight and tasted of horse food - grass and soaked barley. However, the last casks that were put aside now have serious age and possibly were not put into blends as they were special in some way or didn't match the distillery profile. Now it's easy to get nostalgic as there are these amazing old casks from these dead distilleries but a distillery can't survive a downturn in the whisky cycle if it takes amazing casks and 21 -35 years for it to taste like magic - when the going gets tough a distillery has to fulfil a role in a blend or taste great after 12 years in an average cask bottled at 42%ABV. Sometimes even this is not enough as a distillery also has to navigate big multinational internal politics too as even some truly great distilleries have been shut down.