Glenrothes 1996-2022 - 36 Year Old - North Star Spirits - Cask Series 020 - Single Cask

Glenrothes is a much-loved Speyside distillery with a couple of notable claims to fame, namely that it was the keystone malt for Berry Bros & Rudd’s Cutty Sark blend from its launch in the 1920s, and in the 1990s it was the first distillery to specialise in vintage single malt releases. 

Founded in 1879, Glenrothes was expanded three times between 1963 and 1989, bringing the total number of stills to ten with a hefty production capacity of over 5.5m litres per year. The spirit seems to perform best with medium to long term maturation in sherry casks.

After sporadic old vintage releases in the 1970s under Highland Distillers (later fully acquired by Edrington), Glenrothes launched a core range of vintage single malts in 1994. A string of terrific vintage releases followed, including some astonishing 1960s casks. Although the vintage range has now been dropped, Glenrothes is remarkably consistent - just about any sherried release over 15 years old is likely to be terrific whisky.

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.