Ardbeg 17 Year Old - Cadenheads Dumpy - Pre 1977

Founded in 1815, Ardbeg is one of Islay’s iconic distilleries. Ardbeg was purchased by Diageo forerunners DCL and Hiram Walker in 1973, with Walker taking full control in 1977, the year the distillery’s maltings were closed. Ardbeg was mothballed for most of the 1980s; production began again in 1989 under new owners Allied Lyons, but only for two months a year until 1996 when the distillery closed again. In 1997 the dilapidated Ardbeg distillery was bought by Glenmorangie plc (now part of LVMH) and its fortunes turned. Ardbeg was restored and relaunched, kickstarting the craze for heavily peated single malt whisky.

Ardbeg was seldom commercially available before the Allied/DCL takeover - the old white label official bottlings are now very rare. Allied bottled a handful of black label Ardbegs in the 1990s including the popular Ardbeg 30-year-old. The breakthrough bottlings were the Ardbeg 17-year-old and Ardbeg 1974 Provenance released by Glenmorangie in 1997 - these were soon followed by numerous magnificent single casks from 1970s vintages that cemented Ardbeg’s reputation. Independent Ardbeg is uncommon nowadays.

In 1842 George Duncan established a wine merchant and distillery agency business in Aberdeen. Duncan was joined in the early 1850s by his brother-in-law William Cadenhead, who took over the business after Duncan’s death in 1858, changing the company’s name to Wm. Cadenhead. When Cadenhead died in 1904 the company passed to his nephew Robert Duthie, who developed the spirits side of the business.

Duthie died suddenly in 1931, and employee Ann Oliver was put in charge of Cadenhead’s. Sadly, Oliver’s tenure ended in financial difficulty and on her retirement in 1972 the business was forced to sell its entire inventory. Cadenhead’s was acquired soon afterwards by J & A Mitchell, proprietors of Springbank distillery, who relocated the business to Campbeltown. Cadenhead’s has flourished under Mitchell’s stewardship, releasing many legendary single malt bottlings in the 1980s and 1990s and now has outlets in Edinburgh and London as well as Campbeltown.