Annandale 2014-2018 - Man O' Words - Single Cask 142

The original Annandale distillery in Dumfriesshire in the Lowlands opened in the 1830s, was bought by John Walker & Sons in 1895 and closed down in 1918. The distillery buildings were used to dry porridge oats for the next 90 years or so, but a £10m restoration and refurbishment began after the site was bought by Professor David Thomson and his wife Teresa Church in 2007. Distillation started in 2014 and the first official Annandale whisky was released at the end of 2017.

The new Annandale distillery has three stills but practises double distillation, splitting the output of the wash still between two small spirit stills.  Annandale makes both unpeated and heavily-peated Lowland malt whisky - the unpeated spirit is bottled as Annandale Man O’Words, while the peated whisky is Annadale Man O’Sword.

Distillery bottlings are, as the name suggests, bottled by or for the distillery from which the whisky has originated and are thus often referred to as Official Bottlings or OBs. Distillery bottlings are generally more desirable for collectors and usually fetch higher prices at auction than independent bottlings. They are officially-endorsed versions of the whisky from a particular distillery and are therefore considered the truest expression of the distillery’s character.

This ideal of the distillery character is regarded so seriously by the distilleries and brand owners that casks of whisky that are considered to vary too far from the archetype are frequently sold on to whisky brokers and independent bottlers. When this happens, it is often with the proviso that the distillery’s name is not allowed to be used when the cask is bottled for fear of diminishing or damaging the distillery’s character and status.