Archive For March 16, 2015
Continuing with the Old Malt Cask bottling with which we finished the series of the independent bottler masterclass reviews, we now turn to some other OMC bottlings, shared with me by my friend Manny, which will be reviewed over the next few weeks, not as a series, rather sprinkled over that period. If you want…
The Douglas Laing firm needs no introductions, and while today the Old Malt Cask brand is held by Hunter Laing, it was the mainstay of the older bottlings made by the pre-division Douglas Laing Company. A bit of history: Fredrick Douglas Laing founded his independent whisky bottling company in 1948, and raised his two sons,…
Longrow is Springbank’s peated line of whisky, which was begun in the 1973. It’s named after the old Longrow distillery, which operated next door to the Springbank distillery from 1824 through 1896. In fact, Springbank’s bottling facility is the warehouse of the old Longrow distillery. This masterclass is, of course, about the independent bottlers, and…
Together with the old sherry Glenlossie, this Highland Park was the high point in this very special tasting. Of all independent bottlers, Gordon and MacPhail have a singular approach to wood management: They bring their own casks to distilleries, and have them filled there. Thus, they are probably the independent bottler most involved in the…
The third independent bottler to be examined was the Scotch Malt Whisky Society. Founded in 1983 by Phillip “Pip” Hills’ group of friends who shared the cost of buying a cask of Glenfarclas (hence its being distillery number 1) in 1978, creating a growing syndicate of people sharing the cost of the casks. By 1983 membership…