Mosstowie 1979 40 Year Old Artist #11 LMDW

The Canadian distiller Hiram Walker had owned George Ballantine & Son since 1935, and bought Miltonduff distillery on Speyside a year later.

With the post-war surge in blended Scotch, especially in North America, the firm needed to ramp up production and produce a sufficient variety of malts for the likes of Ballantine’s Finest. One of these was Mosstowie – a so-called ‘Lomond malt’ which went into production in 1964 at Miltonduff distillery.

Compared to traditional pot stills they were a lot more versatile – you could adjust the position of the lyne arm and the number of rectifying plates in the neck to vary the amount of reflux and thus heaviness of the spirit. It was deemed perfect for the company’s flagship blend – Ballantine’s Finest, and so Lomond stills were installed at Hiram Walker’s Inverleven, Glenburgie, Scapa and Miltonduff distilleries.

But with the rectifying plates notoriously hard to clean and little demand from other blenders, Mosstowie was abandoned in 1981 and the stills were ripped out and replaced with traditional pot stills.

Distilled: 1979

Bottled: 2021

Age: 40 Years old

Cask Type: Bourbon Barrel

Cask Number: 12758

50.3% ABV / 70cl

Bottle Number: One of only 113 bottles released

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