Caol Ila 17 Year Unpeated
One of the great things about the whisky surge over the past couple of decades has been the freedom of experimentation. With more volume moving off the shelf, distilleries need a way to stand out. Scotch, having stricter regulations than whisky in many other parts of the world, has to arguably work a little harder to be unique without alienating consumers. The Caol Ila 17 is an example of this deviation, by the simple act of not peat-drying the barley and bottling the whisky at cask strength.
Deanston 12 Year
Deanston has been a distillery since 1966, though the site was a major cotton mill for almost 200 hundred years before that. Sourcing water from the River Teith, it is the only current distillery in Scotland to be entirely powered by hydro-electricity. Deanston is currently owned by Distell Group Limited, which also owns the Tobermory and Bunnahabhain distilleries. Its first single malt was named Old Bannockburn but the core range is now made up of the Deanston 12 and a No Age Statement offering, though they experiment with more limited or distillery-only editions.
Littlemill 25 Year
Littlemill was a lowland distillery founded in the 18th century and, like many distilleries, saw various transitions of ownership throughout the twentieth centuries. A point of interest is that, unlike other lowland distilleries, this spirit was made from a highland water source, along with peat from Stornoway and Perthshire. Closing for the last time in 1997, the building burned in 2004. Loch Lomond Distillery, the final owners, decided to make an offering of 1500 bottles from 10 of the remaining casks distilled in 1989 and 1990. The scarcity of this whisky will surely cause the price to escalate further as it becomes rarer.