The 18 Year Old is the point at which Fettercairn's ongoing experiment with Scottish oak becomes central. As part of the distillery's relaunch under Whyte & Mackay, master blender Gregg Glass initiated a programme to harvest, season and coopering Scottish oak from managed forests in Scotland — a genuinely unusual project, as Scottish oak has barely been used for whisky maturation in the modern era and grows more slowly and tightly than its American cousin. The 18 marries the tropical-fruited house distillate with a period in these Scottish oak casks alongside traditional ex-bourbon barrels.
What this delivers in the glass is a whisky that smells like no other Highland 18. The tropical fruit is still there — the cooling rings on the stills see to that — but it is wrapped in something drier and more aromatic: sandalwood, cedar, a resinous herbal note that is clearly not American oak. The palate marries mango and coconut with honeyed oak and a surprising pepperiness, and the finish holds its dryness well rather than collapsing into sweetness.
At one hundred and sixty pounds this is not a casual purchase, and the price reflects both the age and the novelty of the wood policy rather than any established reputation. But as a commercial release built around virgin Scottish oak it is an almost singular proposition, and the whisky itself justifies the conceit. Bottled at 46.8%, unchillfiltered, and unmistakably Fettercairn — a distillery that has spent the past few years working visibly hard to stop being overlooked.
