Bottle No 1164 

The Rare Malts are a now-discontinued series of cask-strength releases designed by Diageo to showcase some of the hidden treasures in their portfolio. This particular dram is all the more precious for having come from a distillery demolished in 1983. A 20 year old bottling, distilled in 1979 before bottling at cask strength for Diageo's Rare Malts range. This is one of three North Port in the series.

The Brechin distillery was built in 1820 by the Guthrie family, who changed its named to North Port at some point later that century. It was acquired by DCL (now Diageo) in 1922, who closed it down six years later. Production briefly resumed for two years before the war, but it was not until 1945 that regular distilling recommenced. North Port was one of the nine distilleries closed by DCL in 1983 after a market downturn meant their blends were oversupplied. It never re-opened and the site now houses a supermarket. Its single malt is very rare, and was never officially bottled in its lifetime. Diageo have produced only a handful of distillery bottlings, the first of which were in the Rare Malts Selection. Rare and increasingly sought after independent releases like this have also appeared over the years though.

The Rare Malts Selection was a historic selection of single malt whiskies from operational and lost distilleries that were released by Diageo between 1995 and 2005. As with the Flora & Fauna series, they were often from lesser-seen single malt distilleries.