Rosebank sat on the bank of the Forth and Clyde Canal at Falkirk, and for generations it was regarded — by those who paid attention to such things — as the finest of the Lowland distilleries. It was triple-distilled in the old Lowland manner, producing a spirit so light and floral that heavier-handed drinkers sometimes missed the point entirely. Michael Jackson was not among them; he called it the King of the Lowlands, and the designation stuck.
The stills went cold in 1993, another victim of over-capacity and, reportedly, corroded condensers that the owners did not think worth replacing. For a quarter century the buildings sat derelict, the canal carrying walkers and boaters past empty warehouses. Ian Macleod Distillers have since reopened Rosebank, and new spirit is flowing again, but releases like this — drawn from the final production years of the old regime — remain the benchmark.
Thirty years of quiet oak have not coarsened the distillate in the slightest. The nose is exactly what Rosebank ought to be: rose petal, lemon blossom, beeswax and cut grass, with a faint herbal sweetness that one rarely encounters elsewhere. The palate is silken rather than oily, carrying lemon curd and white peach alongside a restrained floral spice. Triple distillation has done its work — there is no heaviness, no tarry phenol, only clarity.
The finish is the clincher. Clean, floral, drying gently with lemon and hay, it is the sort of finish that makes one reach for the glass again almost unconsciously. Rosebank was never about bombast; it was about poise. Thirty years later, poise is still the word.
