Caledonian was built in 1855 by John Menzies and from the outset designed as a grain distillery with a coffey still to help supply demand from blenders.

In 1966 it was taken over by Scottish Grain Distillers and then in 1986, following the merger of Guinness and DCL it became part of United Distillers (and thus eventually Diageo).

Sadly in 1988 it became victim to the great consolidation (cull?) of distilleries and finally closed its doors and was demolished.

JWWW "Old Train Line", Caledonian, 30y, 1987-2017, 51.1% ABV

Bourbon Cask

Original cost of this bottle; €€€€€

Glass: Classic Malt

Colour: Very pale yellow gold, almost almond.

Nose: Firstly a sweet and mildly perfumed fruitiness akin to dried apricot. AFter some minutes in the glass I detect a hint of wholemeal toast.

Palate: A smooth and creamy mouth-feel offers suggestions of apricot and butterscotch but also something with a mild freshness.

Finish: Long and fruity with that apricot.

Overall Impression: Nice, very nice.

I bought this sample to review at Limburg 2017 directly from Jack Wieber (one of my favourite Limburg stands). During Limburg 2018 a whisky friend gave me anoter sample of Caledonian because he knew I hadn't reviewed one as yet. Recently, after sorting my samples I came across the two Caledonian and decided to review them without looking at the details. My notes for both were quite similar with the nose of the first suggesting wholemeal toast and the second more like unbaked bread dough. As for the palate the fruitiness of the first was that of apricot whereas the second offered some suggestion of papaya alngside apricot. The finishes were pretty much identical and thankfully, although I never usually publish my scores here I scored both identically (86pts). It was only a few days later when I was preparing this page that I looked closer and realised both samples were the same whisky.