Clynelish 1996 - 18 Year Old - First Cask - Single Cask 6515

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 vintages Rare Malts Editions 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.

The First Cask range was a prolific series of single malt whisky bottlings by the UK’s largest mail order wine company Direct Wines Ltd, owner of Laithwaite’s and The Sunday Times Wine Club. From the early 1990s until the mid-Noughties Direct Wines released dozens of outstanding single cask whiskies annually under the First Cask label, almost all of which were bottled at 46%.

These whiskies were not particularly highly sought-after on release, probably because they were only sold online through a wine club.  Back then, of course, it was not widely known that the casks had been sourced from Signatory Vintage, which would certainly have raised their profile among whisky fans. Nowadays, although still frequently excellent value at auction, the First Cask collection - which includes hundreds of long-aged whiskies from distilleries including Brora, Port Ellen, Ardbeg and Macallan - is finally getting the recognition it deserves.