Benriach-Glenlivet 1978-1995 - 17 Year Old - Cadenheads Miniature

Benriach distillery was founded in 1897 but was closed in 1900 and remained in mothballs for over six decades. The distillery reopened in 1965 under owners Glenlivet, who were acquired by Canadian distillers Seagram in 1978. Seagram was dismantled in 2001, and Benriach was sold by new owners Pernod Ricard in 2004 to a consortium led by Billy Walker, who established the distillery as a top class single malt whisky brand before eventually selling it to Brown Forman in 2016.

Seagram’s neglectful tenure as stewards of Benriach yielded only a mundane 10-year-old official bottling; by contrast, the Walker era saw a flood of extraordinary single cask editions, with the 1976 vintage confirmed as one of the distillery’s greatest. Walker also popularised Benriach’s more heavily peated spirit, which had been produced since 1972. Top class 1960s and 1970s vintage Benriach whisky has been independently bottled by Gordon & MacPhail, Duncan Taylor and Signatory Vintage among others.

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.