Fettercairn 13 Year Old - Douglas Laing Old Malt Cask Miniature

The Fettercairn distillery has long been in the shadow of its Whyte & Mackay stablemates Dalmore and Jura, and until very recently received little marketing attention. This situation was not helped by a failed revamp in 2009, when a much-trumpeted launch of 24-year-old, 30-year-old and 40-year-old Fettercairns fell a little flat due to a combination of disappointingly low bottling strengths, poor cask selection on the 30-year-old and some laughably over-ambitious pricing.

Happily for Fettercairn, developments since Whyte & Mackay were purchased by Emperador in 2015 have been encouraging, with a smartly-packaged, well-received new range appearing in 2018. Adventurous whisky fans, though, will find the best value for Fettercairn in cask strength, well-aged independent bottlings from Signatory, Cadenhead’s and Douglas Laing.

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, who left the business in 2023. 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.