Clynelish 1995-2013 - 18 Year Old - Duncan Taylor - Dimensions - Single Cask 10168

One of the Highland’s most iconic whisky distilleries, the modern Clynelish distillery dates from 1967, and ran alongside the original distillery (now known as Brora) between 1969-1983. The new Clynelish has six stills and a capacity of just under 5m litres per annum, much of which goes to owner Diageo’s blended whiskies, particularly Johnnie Walker.

Any Clynelish whiskies pre-dating the 1970s are from the distillery now known as Brora, as are most if not all of the old Ainslie & Heilbron official 12-year-olds that continued into the early 1980s. In the mid-1990s modern Clynelish was confirmed as a great whisky distillery in its own right when several outstanding 1970s vintage Rare Malts and the Cask Strength Flora & Fauna 1980 appeared.

Independent bottlings of Clynelish are very common and some incredible whiskies, particularly from the mid-1990s vintages, have been released in recent years.

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.