The 25 Year Old occupies the upper reaches of Glencadam's core range, drawing on casks filled in the years before Allied Distillers mothballed the Brechin distillery in 1987. Stocks of this vintage are necessarily finite — there was no production at Glencadam between 1987 and 2003 — and what survives reflects an earlier era of Highland distilling.
Founded in 1825, Glencadam was for much of its life a workhorse for blenders, its soft, fruity character valued for the body it lent to the great deluxe blends of the twentieth century. Single malt bottlings under its own name were rare until Angus Dundee Distillers, having acquired the site in 2003, set about establishing a coherent core range.
At 25 years, the spirit has had ample time in oak. The traditional ex-bourbon maturation common to the house style allows the cask to lend structure without dominating. The result is a whisky that retains the orchard-fruit signature of Glencadam's lantern-shaped stills, deepened by long years of slow interaction with American oak.
Bottled at 46% ABV, non-chill filtered and at natural colour, it is a serious dram from a distillery that came close to disappearing. Glencadam's older releases remain among the more honest Highland expressions on the market, and the 25 Year Old is the clearest statement the house makes of what patience and good wood can achieve.
