Ardmore 1994-2007 - 12 Year Old - The Single Malts Of Scotland - Casks 578-598

Ardmore is a Highland malt whisky distillery founded in 1898 by the Teacher’s family to supply single malt whisky for their famous blend. Teacher’s was taken over by Allied Breweries in 1976, by which time Ardmore had expanded to eight stills. Allied was itself swallowed by Jim Beam Brands in 2005, and Ardmore was launched as a single malt in 2007 with the release of Ardmore Traditional Cask. Jim Beam merged with the Japanese drinks giant Suntory in 2014. 

Ardmore makes both peated and unpeated spirit, but only the peated version is bottled as single malt. Prior to the Jim Beam takeover, the only official Ardmores were a handful of legendary heavily sherried 1970s bottlings by Teacher’s and a pair of centenary bottlings from 1999. Under Beam/Suntory, official Ardmores are now widely available, while independent Ardmore is abundant and generally of excellent quality.

Speciality Drinks Limited (SDL) was the former parent company of spirits retailer The Whisky Exchange (TWE), and was used to distinguish between the company’s retail activities as TWE and the separate on-trade distribution business. 

Speciality Drinks was also the original home of the company’s proprietary whisky and rum brands Single Malts of Scotland, Port Askaig, Elements of Islay, The Whisky Trail and Black Tot Rum. These brands were transferred by TWE’s founders to their Elixir Distillers company (also home to the recently-acquired Tormore distillery and the forthcoming Islay distillery Portintruan) prior to Pernod Ricard’s takeover of SDL/TWE in 2021.