The 25 Year Old stands at the senior end of Knockando's regular range, and carries the weight of its years with the distillery's customary modesty. There is no great parade of sherry here, no Highland thunder; instead one finds a whisky that has sat in its warehouses at Knockando village and grown slowly older without fuss, the way a country gentleman ages into his tweeds.
Founded in 1898 by John Thomson at the height of the pattern makers' boom, Knockando went through the troubles that befell so many Speysiders at the turn of the century before being absorbed by W. & A. Gilbey, and thereafter into the J&B sphere of influence. The distillery has always been a quiet one, content to feed its blends and to release the occasional vintage statement when the casks justified it. The 25 is cut from that same cloth.
The nose offers beeswax, candied orange and old oak, with a faint suggestion of damp dunnage. The palate is waxy and honeyed, with dried fruit, almond, polished oak and a trace of ginger at the back. The finish is long and dry, the oak pronounced but not aggressive, closing on dark honey and orange rind.
At this age and this strength one expects a certain fragility, and indeed the 25 will not reward careless drinking. A little water broadens the waxy note and brings the orange forward; a generous measure in a copita and an unhurried evening serve it best. This is not a malt to be compared with the big Macallans or Glenfarclases; it is a Knockando, and at twenty-five years it is the fullest expression of what the distillery has always quietly been.
