Bladnoch 1980 - 16 Year Old - First Cask - Single Cask 89/591/16

Founded in 1817, Bladnoch is a Lowland single malt distillery with a fragmented ownership and production history. Bladnoch was rebuilt in the 1950s and changed hands several times before ending up with United Distillers in the late 1980s. UD mothballed Bladnoch in 1993 and sold it the following year to Raymond Armstrong, who eventually won permission from Diageo to resume production in 2000. David Prior bought Bladnoch in 2015 after an internal dispute led to the liquidation of Armstrong’s business.

In the early 2000s Armstrong, who was only permitted to produce 100,000 litres of spirit a year, released several official Bladnochs from previous eras before bottling his own distillate, some of which was peated. Prior is under no such restrictions and the distillery now operates at its 1.5m litre capacity and releases single casks and a range of age statement whiskies. Independent Bladnoch appears regularly from Gordon & MacPhail, Wemyss and the SMWS, among others.

The First Cask range was a prolific series of single malt whisky bottlings by the UK’s largest mail order wine company Direct Wines Ltd, owner of Laithwaite’s and The Sunday Times Wine Club. From the early 1990s until the mid-Noughties Direct Wines released dozens of outstanding single cask whiskies annually under the First Cask label, almost all of which were bottled at 46%.

These whiskies were not particularly highly sought-after on release, probably because they were only sold online through a wine club.  Back then, of course, it was not widely known that the casks had been sourced from Signatory Vintage, which would certainly have raised their profile among whisky fans. Nowadays, although still frequently excellent value at auction, the First Cask collection - which includes hundreds of long-aged whiskies from distilleries including Brora, Port Ellen, Ardbeg and Macallan - is finally getting the recognition it deserves.