Glenrothes 2009-2020 - 11 Year Old - Alistair Walker Infrequent Flyers - Single Cask 6343

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.

Alistair Walker started in the whisky industry straight out of university in the late 1990s when he worked for several years with his father Billy Walker at Burn Stewart. After returning to university for a Masters degree, Walker rejoined the trade in 2004, again working with Billy Walker, who had purchased Benriach distillery in the meantime. 

Walker remained with Benriach Distillery Company until its purchase by Brown Forman in 2016, and founded The Alistair Walker Whisky Company in 2018. The company has since released several dozen single cask malt and grain whiskies under its Infrequent Flyers label, bottled at cask strength without colouring or chill filtration. Walker is an advocate of cask finishing and a significant proportion of the Infrequent Flyers releases have had a secondary maturation.