For the past decade and a half, independent spirits bottler The Last Drop has drip-fed enthusiasts with rare single-malt Scotch; creative blends; whiskey from the US and Ireland; plus the occasional outlier, such as a rum, cognac or fortified wine. These come a couple of times a year. This year, however, three releases have arrived at once as the 2024 Collection.

As precipitate as that might feel to long-term Droppers – where’s the delayed gratification we are used to? – there is no need to fear for consistency of high quality. And there is still the reassuring oddity factor to what’s been released.

Each Last Drop release is numbered sequentially, so let’s start at the end. Release No.36 has the most obvious prestige: a batch of 55YO Tomintoul Speyside single-malt barrels, selected by Colin Scott, who serves as The Last Drop’s master blender after almost five decades in the same role for Chivas Brothers. He recognises good casks when he noses them.

This whisky, distilled in the 1960s, when Tomintoul was only a few years old, was finished in a sherry butt seasoned with what is called “amoroso” – oloroso mixed with sweet Pedro Ximénez to make it more “yielding”. Tender is the night, indeed, if you sip this – the deep amber colour is echoed with classic sherry notes of fruitcake, sticky toffee pudding, tarte tatin and a plethora of puddings you might find at Rules. Classic long-sherry-aged Speyside richness, fruit and spice.

Release No.34 is from one of Scotland’s more underrated regions, the Lowlands. It’s a 40YO Auchentoshan (one of the most satisfying names in the Scottish whisky landscape to say out loud!). The Clydebank distillery is the only one left in Scotland to triple distil, resulting in a delicate spirit. Notes of cherry, raisins and a hint of liquorice among the floral characteristics begin on the nose, then continue to develop on the palate.

In the middle – or rather way off in leftfield – is Release No.35, what’s being called a 22YO Infinitum Rum Blend. This is a rum from, well, all around the world… The source is a rum broker based in Liverpool. Its sales people went out armed with duty-suspended samples of rums from Guyana, Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados, Guadeloupe, Venezuela, Brazil and Fiji – to name the known sources. What was left over was vatted in a rum cask in 2000 and secreted away in a Merseyside warehouse. Bottled in very small numbers 22 years later, it is a liquid puzzle.

Expert rum connoisseurs can play “spot the influence” of different origins. The rest of us can simply enjoy an incredible aged rum: honeycomb, bittersweet marmalade and freshly grated nutmeg and cinnamon on the nose; a hit of gooey sweetness, ginger cake and spice cake on the palate, then a surprisingly dry finish. Very moreish.

Reign in the desire to knock it back, though; there are only 136 bottles of Release No.35, 22YO Infinitum Rum Blend (RRP £2,640, 53.1 per cent). This is The Last Drop, after all. It’s a generous yield from the cask, compared to the mere 72 bottles of Release No.34, 40-Year-Old Single-Malt Scotch Whisky from the Auchentoshan Distillery (£4,200, 44.8 per cent). Oddly, the oldest spirit in the trio, Release No.36, 55-Year-Old Single-Malt Scotch Whisky from the Tomintoul Distillery (£6,600, 41.7 per cent) is available in the greatest numbers – 582 bottles – because it comes from a batch of six casks.

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