A thirty year old Tomatin is a reminder of what the distillery was quietly laying down during its least fashionable years. The 1980s and early 1990s were difficult times for Tomatin — the receivership of 1985 and the subsequent Japanese acquisition left the company with considerably more stock than the market was then prepared to buy. Casks that were filled in that period have since matured into some of the more interesting older Highland malts now reaching the shelves.
The 30 Year Old is drawn from a combination of refill bourbon hogsheads and refill sherry casks, a restrained wood regime that allows the base spirit's character to come through even after three decades. Bottled at 46%, it avoids the over-oaked heaviness that afflicts many whiskies of this vintage, and instead leans into the waxy, slightly tropical quality that long-matured Tomatin tends to develop.
The nose is the old-library kind — beeswax, polished wood, dried apricot — and the palate holds its poise throughout, with honey, poached pear and toasted almond unfolding in careful succession. Oak is present but never hectoring. The finish is long and dry, with the kind of graceful exit that only genuinely old whisky manages. At four hundred and fifty pounds it is an indulgence rather than a purchase, but compared with thirty year old expressions from more celebrated distilleries it represents comparatively sensible money. A dignified bottle, and a quiet argument for Tomatin's continuing underrated status.
