There's a good 70 or more whisky distilleries in Scotland alone. That means there's a huge selection of scotches on the market, particularly when you consider that most distilleries offer more than one expression of its malt. The flip side of that variety can leave a connoisseur bewildered with choices. That's where respected whisky reviewers come in to play. One of the foremost is Jim Murray, who publishes the Whisky Bible every year.
For 2012 Murray selected Old Pulteney and its 21-Year-Old expression as his Whisky of the Year, but now the coastal distillery has released an even older bottling: the Limited Edition 40.
Each bottle of Old Pulteney's 40-Year-Old single malt scotch whisky is hand selected and personally filled by the distillery manager Malcolm Waring from American bourbon and Spanish sherry casks in which this malt has matured over the course of the last four decades.
The whisky is said to have a fruity and floral aroma, slightly spicy with hints of oranges, green apples and butterscotch. Its palate is quoted as sweet and spicy with traces of toffee and pears, with a full-bodied finish.
Each deep blue bottle is hand-blown by the craftsmen at Tudor Crystal Design with actual silver “waves” blown into the glass while it's still molten. It's topped by a stone stopper made from Caithness flagstone by local stonemasons, and placed inside a blue-lacquered wooden box together with a book on the distillery's history, written and autographed by another whisky expert, Charles MacLean.
Uncolored, non-chill-filtered and bottled at cask strength, the Old Pulteney 40-Year-Old carries a suggested retail price of £1,490 (around $2,396).
