Cambus 1976-2022 - 45 Year Old - Douglas Laing XOP - Single Cask 5622

Cambus was founded around 1806, originally as a malt whisky distillery, but was switched to grain whisky production from the 1830s onwards. Cambus distillery was one of the original founders of the Distillers Company Ltd (DCL) in 1877, becoming a key pawn in the legal battles between malt and grain distillers early in the 20th century, when DCL released a seven-year-old Cambus grain whisky with the slogan ‘Not A Headache In A Gallon’.

After a catastrophic fire in 1914 Cambus fell silent for over two decades, but was rebuilt in 1937. The distillery was enlarged in the 1950s to encompass gin production and later became a key site for the processing of CO2 and other distillation by-products. Sadly, Cambus later fell victim to the whisky crisis and subsequent consolidations of the 1980s, and was closed by DCL successor United Distillers in 1993.

Founded in the late 1940s by Fred Douglas Laing Sr, the Douglas Laing company spent decades as whisky blenders and exporters before Fred Laing’s sons Stewart and Fred Jr introduced the highly influential Old Malt Cask single malt range in 1998. The McGibbon’s Provenance and Old & Rare Platinum series followed soon afterwards, establishing Douglas Laing as one of Scotland’s finest independent bottlers.

In 2013 Stewart Laing left the business, taking Old Malt Cask and Old & Rare to his new company Hunter Laing, while Fred Laing Jr was joined by his daughter Cara and her husband Chris Leggatt from Morrison Bowmore, who left the business in 2023. The Old Particular and Extra Old Particular ranges were introduced to replace Old Malt Cask and Old & Rare, and the company has since moved into distilling with the purchase of Strathearn distillery in 2019 and the construction of Clutha distillery in Glasgow.