Coleburn 1967-2002 - 34 Year Old - Douglas Laing - Old & Rare Platinum Selection - Single Cask

Coleburn whisky distillery was founded in Speyside in 1897 and was owned by Diageo forerunner Distillers Company Limited (DCL) from 1915 until it closed in 1985. Coleburn's malt was old-school Highland style and the distillery was instrumental in early experiments on effluent purification techniques. Coleburn distillery is now the HQ of warehousers and bottlers Aceo Ltd.

Almost all of Coleburn’s whisky was blended away, and very little has survived as single malt - the only official bottling was an outstanding 1979 vintage Rare Malts Edition released in 2000. Aceo released a blended Scotch whisky under the Coleburn name in 2018 but it’s unlikely to have Coleburn single malt in it. Coleburn independent bottlings are rare, but generally very high quality. Gordon & MacPhail are the only company to have bottled Coleburn single malt since 2011, so the last casks may soon be exhausted.

Founded in the late 1940s by Fred Douglas Laing Sr, the Douglas Laing company spent decades as whisky blenders and exporters before Fred Laing’s sons Stewart and Fred Jr introduced the highly influential Old Malt Cask single malt range in 1998. The McGibbon’s Provenance and Old & Rare Platinum series followed soon afterwards, establishing Douglas Laing as one of Scotland’s finest independent bottlers.

In 2013 Stewart Laing left the business, taking Old Malt Cask and Old & Rare to his new company Hunter Laing, while Fred Laing Jr was joined by his daughter Cara and her husband Chris Leggatt from Morrison Bowmore. The Old Particular and Extra Old Particular ranges were introduced to replace Old Malt Cask and Old & Rare, and the company has since moved into distilling with the purchase of Strathearn distillery in 2019 and the construction of Clutha distillery in Glasgow.