Imperial 1990 - Duncan Taylor - Autumn Investing Meeting 2008

Originally founded in 1897, Imperial was a Speyside distillery that enjoyed only sporadic production. Imperial was owned for most of its lifetime by Diageo forerunner Scottish Malt Distillers, who only operated it between 1955-1985. Imperial was sold in 1989 to Allied Distillers, who briefly restarted production but mothballed it again in 1998. Allied Distillers were taken over in 2005 by Pernod Ricard, who demolished Imperial in 2013 to make way for the construction of the enormous Dalmunach distillery. 

Imperial was never officially bottled as a single malt during its lifetime, although Allied did a rather mediocre official 15-year-old around the turn of the millennium with the distillery already in mothballs. The best Imperial single malts are older vintage independent bottlings from Cadenhead’s and Douglas Laing, and more recent editions from Signatory, the SMWS and Elixir Distillers.

Duncan Taylor was founded in 1938, originally as a cask broker. The Glasgow-based company was acquired in the 1960s by the American blender and entrepreneur Abe Rosenberg, who amassed a large stock of maturing casks. Following Rosenberg’s death in 1994 the Duncan Taylor business lay dormant until the early 2000s, when the trustees offered some casks to businessmen Euan Shand and Alan Gordon. 

Shand and Gordon were so impressed with Duncan Taylor’s stock that they bought the company in 2002 and began bottling some of Rosenberg’s best casks. A string of extraordinary bottlings of Longmorn, Macallan, Bowmore and Springbank were released under the now defunct Peerless range and today Duncan Taylor, with Shand in full control since 2006, is established as one of Scotland’s most interesting independent bottlers.