Wick was once the herring capital of the world — two thousand vessels working the harbor, the town's population quadrupling, locals calling the fish "the silver darlings" — and the gold was being made just up the road. James Henderson founded Pulteney Distillery in 1826 in Pulteneytown, the district built to house fishermen during the boom, at what was then the most northerly distillery on the Scottish mainland. There were no roads: barley came in by sea, whisky went out by sea, and fishermen worked the stillhouse when the fleet couldn't sail. Then the town voted itself dry. Wick's own prohibition ran from 1922 to 1947, the distillery closed in 1930, and it sat silent for 27 years before Robert "Bertie" Cumming restarted production in 1951. Inver House bought it in 1995, released the 12 Year Old in 1997, and built "The Maritime Malt" into one of the most respected coastal Highland whiskies made. The character comes from geography and hardware: warehouses facing the North Sea, with salt air working its way into breathing casks; and a genuinely odd wash still with a flat top and no swan neck, reportedly because the original was too tall for the stillhouse and the manager simply cut it down. The house style is sweet, fruity, malty, and briny, running from the 12 Year through the 15, 18, and 25, plus the peat-cask-finished Huddart. The 21 Year was named World Whisky of the Year in Jim Murray's 2012 Whisky Bible.

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