Girvan 34-year-old (D.1988, B.2022) The Sovereign HL / 55.9% / 0.7l

The Sovereign is a boutique series offering single grain whiskies aged for a minimum of 25 years and bottled in single cask, without chill filtration and with a natural colour, always at cask strength.

It is part of the Hunter Laing & Co. portfolio, founded by Stewart Laing in 2013. In that year, Stewart and his brother Fred split the assets of Douglas Laing & Co., which they owned for some 40 years. The Girvan 34 year old on display here was distilled in October 1988 and aged in a refilled hogshead cask, reference number HL 19742. As of October 2022, its contents have been converted to 113 bottles. Owned by Wm Grant & Sons, the Girvan Distillery has been in operation since 1963. After several modernisations, it has a capacity of over 140 million litres of spirit per year.

Nose : red apples, strawberries, dried apricots, maple syrup, honey, toffee, mocha, sponge cake, licorice, coconut flakes, cinnamon, cloves and oak.

Palate: sweet, milk chocolate, caramel, toffee apples, strawberries, raspberries, cherries, coconut, cinnamon, nutmeg and oak.

Finish : quite long and sweet, with notes of red berries, vanilla, caramel, toffee, white pepper, cinnamon and oak.