Old Pulteney 12 — Brine and Brightness
By Rafi Mercer
Some whiskies taste like the place they come from. Old Pulteney 12 is one of those. Distilled in Wick, a northern harbour town once known for its vast herring fleet, it carries the sea in its bones. For decades it has been called “the maritime malt,” and the 12-year-old expression shows why: crisp, briny, and bright, with a freshness that makes it both distinctive and approachable.
Founded in 1826, Old Pulteney was once the northernmost distillery on the Scottish mainland. Its warehouses still look out towards the North Sea, and the salty air seeps into the casks as they mature. Wick itself has a history shaped by the sea — prosperity built on fishing, decline with its loss, renewal in recent years. The whisky mirrors that history: robust yet precise, grounded in place, unmistakably coastal.
In the glass, Old Pulteney 12 shines pale gold. On the nose, it offers apple, citrus, and cereal sweetness, joined by a saline note that recalls sea spray. On the palate, it is crisp and lively: honey, malt, and lemon zest, balanced by brine and gentle oak. The texture is light, almost breezy, yet carries depth. The finish is medium, drying, with salt lingering alongside sweetness. It is whisky that refreshes as much as it satisfies — a dram that feels both simple and profound.
What makes Old Pulteney 12 essential in the Tracks & Tales Guide to the Top 50 Whiskies is how directly it delivers its geography. While many Highland whiskies are defined by orchard fruit or heathered hills, Old Pulteney is shaped by the sea. It demonstrates how climate and air can become part of flavour, how whisky can act as a map of place.
Its musical twin is Harold Budd & Brian Eno’s The Plateaux of Mirror. Released in 1980, the album is a study in restraint and atmosphere, Budd’s piano drifting through Eno’s ambient textures. Like Old Pulteney 12, it is light yet resonant, subtle yet evocative. Both whisky and record carry clarity — not loud, not insistent, but luminous in their simplicity.
In a listening bar, the pairing creates stillness. A dram of Old Pulteney 12 rests in hand as Budd’s notes fall into Eno’s haze, the whisky’s citrus brightness catching the same quiet light as the music. The saline finish mirrors the record’s open space, the sense of horizon stretching beyond the room. Neither overwhelms; both expand.
Old Pulteney 12 is not about opulence or intensity. It is about freshness, about the way salt and sweetness can coexist. It shows how whisky can carry place as much as flavour, how air and sea can shape spirit into something singular. For many, it becomes a dram of return — a whisky that recalls coastal walks, sea winds, and light falling across water.
And perhaps the next step is to drink it somewhere that honours that openness — a harbour bar where the air itself carries salt, or a listening space where daylight drifts across the room as music unfolds. Because Old Pulteney 12, like The Plateaux of Mirror, reveals its beauty most fully when you give it space, when you let air and light do their work.
Rafi Mercer writes about the spaces where music matters. For more stories from Tracks & Tales, subscribe, or click here to read more.
