An old hogshead of Tomatin can be an absolutely magical thing. Tomatin Distillery was established in 1897 in the Highland village that gives it its name, formally founded as the Tomatin Spey Distillery Company to take advantage of soft water from the Alt na Frith stream and the newly extended Highland Railway for transport. Early operations began with just two stills, and after a brief closure and re-opening in 1909 under new ownership, the site gradually expanded through the mid-20th century. By the 1970s Tomatin had grown to 23 stills, making it one of the largest malt whisky producers in Scotland with capacity into the tens of millions of litres, most of which went into blends rather than single malts. However, the industry downturn in the 1980s led to liquidation, and in 1986 Japanese firm Takara Shuzo (later The Tomatin Distillery Company) acquired the distillery, marking it as the first wholly Japanese-owned Scotch producer. Under this ownership the focus shifted toward quality and single malt bottlings alongside continued blended whisky supply. The single malt has a good reputation among classical scotch lovers, but it's availability as a single cask is relatively scarce. With age like this in high quality old wood, it can be truly exceptional. This barrel was bottled without chill-filtration or coloring of any kind at a natural cask strength of 57.2% alc by vol. Expect rich decadent flavors of fruit cake - sultanas, candied apple, apricot, cherry and allspice.