This is a pre arrival offering with a firm cutoff date. Timing is an estimate and can shift due to carrier schedules, port congestion, customs, or warehouse receiving.
Blackadder Statement No. 62, Clynelish 1989, 36 Year Old
Clynelish, distilled on September 26, 1989, left in one hogshead, No. 6089, for thirty-six years and bottled in April 2026 by Blackadder as Statement No. 62. Drawn at cask strength, 41.2%, Raw Cask: no filtration of any kind, no added colour. 133 bottles came out of the cask. The Whiskey Lab has six.
Statement is Blackadder's top shelf, reserved for casks Robin Tucek thinks make a statement on their own. This one does it quietly. Robin's view, from the cask: it is almost certainly the original hogshead the spirit was filled into in 1989, probably a second or third fill at the time, which is why thirty-six years produced flavour that is, in his words, very good and not woody. A 1989 Clynelish at this age with the wax and fruit intact rather than buried in oak is the whole point. UK retail will not be under 550 pounds a bottle before tax.
About Blackadder
Blackadder International was founded in 1995 by Robin Tucek and remains a family operation, run with his daughter Hannah and son Michael. The house philosophy has never changed: the cask is king. Blackadder selects individual casks on their own merits, bottles at natural strength, and never chill filters or adds colour.
Raw Cask is the purest expression of that philosophy. The whisky goes from cask to bottle with no filtration at all, not even a mechanical screen. Fragments of char and cask sediment travel with the spirit into the bottle. Statement is the series reserved for the rarest casks in the warehouse, numbered edition by edition. This is No. 62.
Distillery profile, Clynelish
- The current distillery opened in 1967 beside the original 1819 Clynelish, later renamed Brora, on the Sutherland coast above the North Sea. In 1989 Brora had been silent for six years and Clynelish was carrying the name alone.
- Owned by Diageo and the heart of Johnnie Walker Gold Label. Official bottlings beyond the 14 year old are rare; a 36 year old of any kind is rarer still.
- The signature is wax: a candle-wax, oily texture no other distillery replicates, over orchard fruit and sea air.
- Clynelish from the late 1980s is some of the most sought after in the independent market, and most of it is gone.
Cask profile, hogshead No. 6089
Robin Tucek on this cask: with whiskies this old there is no record of cask changes, but looking at it, it must be an original fill, possibly a second or even third fill at the time of use. A tired cask was the right cask. Thirty-six years in active oak would have made furniture; this made whisky.
The strength fell to 41.2% over three and a half decades, which tells you how slowly and gently this cask breathed. What is left is concentration without heaviness: wax, honey, old fruit, soft oak.
Bottled April 2026, Raw Cask, no added colour, no chill filtration, no filtration at all. 133 bottles. Six crossed the Atlantic.
On Tasting Notes
You will not find tasting notes here. By design.
The Whiskey Lab publishes every technical detail a curious drinker could ask for: distillery, cask, distillation date, ABV, outturn. Everything that makes the liquid what it is. What we leave to you is the experience of drinking it.
Tasting notes shape expectation. They tell you what you should find before you find it. Our position is that the spirit in your glass should speak for itself, and what you find there belongs to you. Pour it neat. Add a few drops of water if it asks for it. Take your time. The cask did.
| Specification | Details |
|---|---|
| Brand | Blackadder International |
| Series | Statement No. 62, Raw Cask |
| Style | Single malt Scotch whisky, single cask |
| Region | Highland (Sutherland) |
| Distillery | Clynelish |
| Age | 36 years |
| ABV | 41.2% (cask strength) |
| Volume | 700ml |
| Cask | Single hogshead No. 6089, original fill, full maturation |
| Distilled | September 26, 1989 |
| Bottled | April 2026 |
| Outturn | 133 bottles, 6 for the USA |
| Natural colour | Yes |
| Filtration | None (Raw Cask) |
| Availability | Pre-order, October Import, arrives November 4, 2026 |
The Whiskey Lab's Quality Commitments
- Single Cask & Small Batch: Ensuring a unique profile for each release.
- Natural Colour & Non-Chill Filtered: Preserving the authentic character and purity of the whisky.
- Honest Storytelling: Every cask profile written by people who actually handled the liquid.
