Girvan 1979-2013 - 33 Year Old - Cadenheads - Small Batch

The Girvan distillery was constructed in 1963 by William Grant & Sons, owners of Glenfiddich and Balvenie, and has been creating quality single grain whisky for the company’s blended whisky brands ever since. The move was necessary after Grant’s had broken a gentleman’s agreement with the rest of the industry not to advertise their whisky on television, imperilling their supply of grain whisky from rivals DCL.

The short-lived Ladyburn single malt distillery was built onsite at Girvan in 1965, but ceased production in 1975. In 2007 the Ailsa Bay single malt distillery was built at Girvan with considerably more success, and now produces around 12m litres of malt whisky per annum alongside Girvan’s output of 100 million litres of grain spirit. Girvan is also home to Grant’s Hendrick’s Gin, which has its own stillhouse within the complex.

In 1842 George Duncan established a wine merchant and distillery agency business in Aberdeen. Duncan was joined in the early 1850s by his brother-in-law William Cadenhead, who took over the business after Duncan’s death in 1858, changing the company’s name to Wm. Cadenhead. When Cadenhead died in 1904 the company passed to his nephew Robert Duthie, who developed the spirits side of the business.

Duthie died suddenly in 1931, and employee Ann Oliver was put in charge of Cadenhead’s. Sadly, Oliver’s tenure ended in financial difficulty and on her retirement in 1972 the business was forced to sell its entire inventory. Cadenhead’s was acquired soon afterwards by J & A Mitchell, proprietors of Springbank distillery, who relocated the business to Campbeltown. Cadenhead’s has flourished under Mitchell’s stewardship, releasing many legendary single malt bottlings in the 1980s and 1990s and now has outlets in Edinburgh and London as well as Campbeltown.