Dalwhinnie 2008-2021 - 13 Year Old - North Star Spirits - Cask Series 016 - Single Cask

Dalwhinnie distillery was established in 1898 and became part of Diageo forerunner DCL in 1926. The distillery was catapulted to fame in 1987 as the Speyside representative in the Classic Malts range launched by DCL’s descendant United Distillers to highlight whisky’s regional diversity. Dalwhinnie is often incorrectly cited as Scotland’s highest distillery - that honour belongs to Braeval, whose altitude is 9ft higher. 

Unusually for the Classic Malts, the dumpy-bottled Dalwhinnie 15-year-old was already a pre-existing single malt from DCL subsidiary James Buchanan and was absorbed into the Classic Malts with its strength bumped to 43%. After a popular cask strength Centenary Edition 15-year-old from 1998, Dalwhinnie became a regular in Diageo’s Special Releases, with seven appearances since 2002. These have fared better than the uninspiring Winter’s Gold and Game of Thrones NAS releases. Independent bottlings of Dalwhinnie whisky are virtually non-existent.

North Star Spirits is an independent whisky bottling company founded in Glasgow in 2016 by AD Rattray alumnus Iain Croucher. North Star quickly established itself as one of the most popular of the recent wave of Scottish independent whisky bottlers thanks to a prolific series of top class whiskies released in eye-catching packaging at sensible prices. North Star Spirits was named Independent Bottler of the Year at the Scottish Whisky Awards in 2020 and 2021.

Besides their excellent single cask and small batch single malt releases, which are bottled without colouring or chill filtration and are usually at cask strength, North Star have also released several outstanding blended malt and blended Scotch whiskies alongside occasional bottlings of rum, gin, bourbon and Pedro Ximenez fortified wine.