Bladnoch 1991 - 15 Year Old - Douglas Of Drumlanrig - Single Cask

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.

Douglas of Drumlanrig was a collaborative line of independent bottlings of single malt whisky released by indie bottlers Douglas Laing and the Duke of Buccleuch & Queensberry. The whiskies were bottled with labels featuring a portrait of the Duke’s ancestral home, Drumlanrig Castle in Dumfriesshire. Some magnificent casks appeared under this label, including long-aged cask strength drams from Ardbeg, Macallan and Port Ellen.

Douglas of Drumlanrig bottlings were released under Douglas Laing’s Langside Distillers subsidiary and the range was successful, with over 400 bottlings released since 2000. Langside Distillers was assigned to Hunter Laing during the 2013 split with Douglas Laing, but the Douglas of Drumlanrig brand was stymied soon afterwards by a trademark lawsuit. Hunter Laing won the case, but the Douglas of Drumlanrig brand has remained dormant since 2016.