Dalwhinnie 30 years – Special Release 2019 54.7%

Dalwhinnie 30 years – Special Release 2019 54.7%

This Dalwhinnie 30 year old is the oldest bottling among Diageo's 2019 Special Release. It matured in refilled pig heads and butts for over 30 years, giving it its complex yet smooth character.

This year's special release bottlings from Diageo have the motto 'Rare by Nature'.

Scent: Very mild fragrance with a slight sting. The top notes are vegetarian and faintly smoky, like the scent of candles, almost suggestive of a Halloween pumpkin lantern. The overall impression is fragrant with a light sweetness that suggests heathland pollen. The base notes are of spicy freshly planed wood, which, if a drop of water is added, becomes light balsa wood. Very sweet first and after this with a tang, fruity note of pickled ginger.

Taste: At natural strength this Dalwhinnie is creamy and smooth with delicious mouth filling texture, there is a rich sweet and waxy initial taste with spice. A hint of salt and a pleasing peppery heat that continues into the finish. The taste is slightly reduced but remains the same when a good drop of water is added, giving a sweet, evenly balanced whole that is delicious to drink.

Aftertaste: Long and spicy heat that tingles the tongue with a pleasant earthy aftertaste. A little water prolongs the finish and reduces the spicy taste.

About the Distillery:

No other distillery is allowed to use the water from Lochan an Doire Uaine – “Loch of the green thicket” – a collection of pure snowmelt and rainwater high in the Drumochter Hills. This may be why Dalwhinnie Scotch is the only Highland whisky; that offers a combination of clean and approachable, salty-sweet flavor with a smooth and smokeless heat. This may also be why Dalwhinnie releases her full honey when served chilled or over ice.

When it was purpose-built in 1897, the distillery was first called Strathspey. Perhaps looking to differentiate their already distinctive whisky, the owners soon changed the name to Dalwhinnie when production began in 1898. It means “Plain of Meetings” in Gaelic, a reference to the location at a crossroads of old traveled roads, between two mountain ranges .

Although beautiful and ancient, the site is not without its drawbacks: a fire in 1934 caused a four-year closure, with rebuilding hampered by bitterly cold winters and twenty-foot snow drifts.