Glen Elgin 1986 - 21 Year Old - First Cask - Single Cask 2515

Founded in 1898, Glen Elgin distillery was taken over by Diageo forerunners Distillers Company Limited in 1930 and was immediately licensed to their recently-acquired subsidiary White Horse Distillers, where it has been one of the keystone malts for the White Horse blend ever since.

Glen Elgin’s importance to White Horse, one of the world’s biggest Scotch whisky brands, has meant that official bottlings of the distillery’s single malt have always been thin on the ground. A 12-year-old edition bearing the White Horse logo was bottled in the 1970s and 1980s, and a pair of famous Manager’s Dram sherry casks followed in 1988 and 1993.

Today, as in the ‘70s, the only ongoing official Glen Elgin is the 12-year-old, although there have been three Special Releases outings this century. Independent bottlings of Glen Elgin are widely available and generally very good quality.

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.