Cardhu 12 Year Old - Circa 1990

Founded in 1824, the Cardhu distillery in Speyside was purchased by John Walker & Sons in 1893 and has been associated with the Johnnie Walker brand ever since. John Walker & Sons was assimilated into Diageo forerunner DCL in 1925, and Cardhu’s importance led to the distillery being rebuilt and expanded to six stills in 1960. The distillery’s name was anglicised to Cardow in 1908 but reverted to Cardhu for official bottlings in the 1960s. 

As well as being a keystone whisky for Johnnie Walker, Cardhu has long been officially bottled as a single malt whisky in its own right, with the tall bottle 12-year-old official Cardhus from the 1960s and 1970s highly sought after. Long-aged official Cardhus appeared in the 1990s and early 2000s as Rare Malts Editions and early Diageo Special Releases. Independent Cardhu is rare but Cadenhead’s, Signatory and the SMWS have all released excellent old vintages.

Distillery bottlings are, as the name suggests, bottled by or for the distillery from which the whisky has originated and are thus often referred to as Official Bottlings or OBs. Distillery bottlings are generally more desirable for collectors and usually fetch higher prices at auction than independent bottlings. They are officially-endorsed versions of the whisky from a particular distillery and are therefore considered the truest expression of the distillery’s character.

This ideal of the distillery character is regarded so seriously by the distilleries and brand owners that casks of whisky that are considered to vary too far from the archetype are frequently sold on to whisky brokers and independent bottlers. When this happens, it is often with the proviso that the distillery’s name is not allowed to be used when the cask is bottled for fear of diminishing or damaging the distillery’s character and status.