Cutty Sark Prohibition

About the Cutty Sark Prohibition

Cutty Sark Prohibition is a blended Scotch whisky bottled at 50% ABV. It comes from Cutty Sark, a blending house whose spirit is drawn from distilleries across Scotland. The house's standard bottling sits at 40%, so this one lands with more weight. The name points back to the 1920s, when American drinkers could not buy Scotch legally. Cases still reached them, and the brand's reputation was built in those years. Berry Bros. & Rudd created the blend on 23 March 1923. The firm had sold wine from its London shop since 1698. Their whisky was the first light-coloured blend in a market full of dark drams. Glenrothes in Speyside was its early home, and malts from Highland Park, Macallan and Bunnahabhain went into the recipe. By 1961 it was the first Scotch to sell a million cases in America. Molasses and vanilla come first, with a lick of salted caramel behind them. Oak and a dry herbal edge sit underneath. Spice takes over once you taste it, and black pepper runs alongside a bready, cereal note. Marshmallow softens the middle before the pepper returns. Caramel, sweet grain and dried fruit stretch out the finish. At 50%, none of it feels thin or hurried. The wood note holds on longest. Cutty Sark Prohibition sits apart from the standard yellow-label blend on strength alone. The house released it in 2013, eighty years after America repealed Prohibition. Where the regular bottling is light and gentle, this one is built to push through. That suits the era it honours. Rum-runners like Bill McCoy made their name landing real Scotch, not moonshine. Anyone who finds ordinary blends too polite will hear the difference here.