The 22 Year Old is currently the senior age-stated expression in Fettercairn's core range, and the one that most fully showcases the distillery's peculiar stillhouse without any finishing sleight of hand. Unlike the 16 with its sherry finishes or the 18 with its Scottish oak, the 22 has been matured throughout in American oak ex-bourbon casks, leaving the base spirit and the wood to get on with each other over more than two decades.
It is a vindication of what Fettercairn's copper cooling rings actually do. By condensing heavier compounds out of the vapour during distillation, they produce a notably lighter and fruitier new make, and given long enough in good wood that character intensifies rather than fades. The 22 is ripe with mango and pineapple, wrapped in beeswax, vanilla and the kind of aromatic herbal spice that old Highland whisky sometimes develops. The oak is noticeable but never dominant — polished rather than sawn.
Bottled at 47%, non-chill-filtered, and without the tropical-fruit character having to compete with an imposed sherry profile, this is the expression that answers the question of what Fettercairn tastes like when given proper age and left alone. At two hundred and eighty pounds it is firmly in treat territory, but comparable to or cheaper than many twenty-two year old Highland counterparts with considerably less character. For those curious about why anyone would bother pouring cold water down the outside of a still, the 22 Year Old makes the case more eloquently than any marketing copy.
