Dallas Dhu 1978 - 15 Year Old - First Cask - Single Cask 2608

Speyside distillery Dallas Dhu began production in 1899 and was acquired by Diageo forerunner DCL in 1929. The distillery suffered a serious fire in 1939 but was rebuilt and subsequently made malt whisky for blends from 1947 until its closure by DCL in 1983. Dallas Dhu was sold to Historic Scotland in 1986 and converted into a distillery museum - the equipment is still theoretically operational, but previous plans to resume whisky production have come to nothing.

No official bottlings of Dallas Dhu’s whisky appeared until the mid-1990s when a handful of superb Rare Malts Editions were released. Historic Scotland subsequently bottled a number of Dallas Dhu malt whiskies, including the last 1983 vintage cask ever filled at the distillery. Independent bottlings of Dallas Dhu single malt are becoming very scarce now; the best previous examples are from G&M, Signatory and Cadenhead’s.

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.