Dalmunach 2015-2020 - 4 Year Old - The Distillery Reserve Collection - Single Cask 1057171

Dalmunach is a large Speyside distillery constructed by Chivas Brothers (Pernod Ricard) in 2013 on the site of the old Imperial distillery. Dalmunach is equipped with eight large stills, giving it a capacity of around 10 million litres per annum, the vast majority of which goes to Chivas’ blends.  

Distillation at Dalmunach began at the end of 2014, and the first official bottling of Dalmunach single malt whisky was released in 2019, though so far the distillery bottlings have been small batches for sale only at Chivas distilleries. Independent bottlings of Dalmunach are also relatively rare but some Dalmunach casks have been bottled by Duncan Taylor, Dram Mor, Claxton’s and North Star Spirits among others.

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.