Caperdonich 1968-2006 - 37 Year Old - Duncan Taylor - Lonach Collection

Built in 1897 as an extension of Glen Grant, Caperdonich distillery was initially named Glen Grant 2, but operated only until 1902 before being mothballed for 63 years. The distillery reopened in 1965, was soon renamed Caperdonich and ran under owners Chivas Brothers until 2002. Caperdonich was sold to the neighbouring Forsyth’s coppersmiths in 2010 and later demolished, though the stills survive at the new Falkirk distillery and Owl distillery in Belgium.

Caperdonich’s whisky was generally very slow-maturing, and was sadly underrated during the distillery’s lifetime. The only official bottling from this period was a rare 1970s 5-year-old for Italy, but Chivas have subsequently released some excellent small batch vintage whiskies, including some of the peated whisky Caperdonich made towards the end of its life. Long-aged indie Caperdonichs from the 1960s and 1970s are usually superb.

Duncan Taylor was founded in 1938, originally as a cask broker. The Glasgow-based company was acquired in the 1960s by the American blender and entrepreneur Abe Rosenberg, who amassed a large stock of maturing casks. Following Rosenberg’s death in 1994 the Duncan Taylor business lay dormant until the early 2000s, when the trustees offered some casks to businessmen Euan Shand and Alan Gordon. 

Shand and Gordon were so impressed with Duncan Taylor’s stock that they bought the company in 2002 and began bottling some of Rosenberg’s best casks. A string of extraordinary bottlings of Longmorn, Macallan, Bowmore and Springbank were released under the now defunct Peerless range and today Duncan Taylor, with Shand in full control since 2006, is established as one of Scotland’s most interesting independent bottlers.