The 16 Year Old joined Old Pulteney's core range as part of the line restructure that also brought the 15 and 18 into clearer focus. It is matured in a mixture of ex-bourbon American oak and Spanish oak that has held sherry, and bottled at 46% without chill-filtration. In the hierarchy of the Wick range it is the middle child: more cask weight than the 12, less depth than the 18, and with the same coastal signature running through it.
That signature is what keeps Pulteney drinkers loyal. The distillery sits a few streets back from Wick harbour, and although nobody seriously claims that sea spray drifts into the warehouses, the new-make spirit has always carried a saline note that survives long maturation. The wash still's truncated neck and boil ball give a heavier cut than most Highlanders, and the resulting whisky has the oiliness to take sherry casks without being smothered by them.
At sixteen years the bourbon-cask brightness and the sherry-cask weight are well balanced. There is enough age to round the edges of the spirit, and enough youth to keep the citrus and brine in play. It drinks slowly and rewards a little water, which opens the toffee and the dried-fig notes without flattening the salt.
Pulteney was founded in 1826, mothballed in 1930 under the local prohibition that Wick imposed on itself, and only reopened in 1951. The distillery's continued existence is one of the small miracles of the Highland trade, and the 16 is a fair, unflashy expression of why it matters.
