Caledonian 1987 - 30 Year Old - Cadenheads Warehouse Tasting

The Caledonian grain whisky distillery was constructed in Edinburgh in 1855 by Menzies & Co. and joined the fledgling cartel Distillers Company Limited in 1884, by which time Caledonian was already producing around 9 million litres of spirit a year and was one of the largest distilleries in Scotland.

In the 20th century, Caledonian survived a Luftwaffe strike on its Haymarket warehouses in 1940 that resulted in a major fire, but closed soon after the notorious 1986 merger of DCL and Guinness that created United Distillers. Caledonian was shuttered in 1988, and the majority of the distillery’s buildings have since been converted into housing.

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.