Glenfiddich Special Reserve - Miniature Collection

Glenfiddich distillery was built in 1886 by William Grant and is still owned by his family descendants today. Glenfiddich played a major role in the history of Scotch whisky, as the first distillery to commercialise its own official bottlings of single malt whisky on a major scale in the early 1960s. This move was to shape the industry up to the present day, and Glenfiddich has remained the world’s best-selling single malt whisky. 

It’s unlikely William Grant would recognise Glenfiddich today: since the 2020 reconstruction, the distillery now has a remarkable 43 stills making over 20 million litres of alcohol per annum. The core range official bottlings are frequently augmented by small batch limited editions; independent bottlings are almost non-existent. The exceptionally rare 1937 vintage released in 2001 is probably the most sought-after Glenfiddich, though early and/or long-aged vintage expressions also do well at auction.

William Wemyss founded Wemyss Malts in 2005 after a period working in the wine industry. The company bottles a range of single cask and small batch malt whiskies at 46% or cask strength, and are most famous for their range of blended malts including The Hive, Spice King and Peat Chimney. 

The vast majority of Wemyss products are strongly flavour-themed and, similar to the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, the company’s single cask malts are given playful flavour-based names. Wemyss have bottled some outstanding single cask single malts this century, including remarkable casks from Springbank, Caol Ila, Bowmore and Bunnahabhain. The Wemyss company became distillers in their own right in 2014 when they took over and completed the Kingsbarns distillery project.