Cambus 1986-2010 - 24 Year Old - Bladnoch Forum - Single Cask 18988

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.

The Bladnoch Forum was an online discussion group set up in 2001 by former distillery owner Raymond Armstrong for friends and fans of the Bladnoch distillery. Under the terms of his agreement with Diageo to recommence distillation Armstrong was allowed to produce only 100,000 litres of Bladnoch spirit per annum; with the Forum gaining traction among whisky fans, in 2005 Armstrong decided to start bottling and selling whiskies to his loyal members.

Over 100 single cask whiskies were released by Bladnoch Forum between 2005-2012, many of which were of outstanding quality. In the early 2000s Armstrong was quoted as saying that no whisky was worth more than £50, and the Bladnoch Forum bottlings were exceptional value for drinkers. The superb long-aged Invergordon grains and the fantastic 1980s vintages of Caol Ila and Port Ellen are still highly sought after at auction.