Glenlossie 1978 - 27 Year Old - First Cask - Single Cask 4779

One of Scotland’s more obscure distilleries, Glenlossie is part of Diageo’s stable of workhorse Speysiders. Founded in 1876, Glenlossie joined Diageo forerunner DCL’s portfolio in 1919 and now has six stills and a theoretical production capacity of just under 4 million litres per year. The Mannochmore distillery was built adjacent to Glenlossie in 1971.

Glenlossie’s crucial importance to the Haig and Dimple blended Scotch whisky brands has meant that the distillery has never been deemed worth marketing as a single malt in its own right, with the only regular distillery bottling being the Flora & Fauna 10-year-old first released in 1991. Independent bottlings of Glenlossie are relatively common, with recent highlights including 1975 vintage bottlings from The Whisky Agency, Cadenhead’s and Gordon & MacPhail and 1997 casks by Signatory Vintage, Jack Weiber and The Maltman among others.

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.