Knockdhu 2013-2021 - 8 Year Old - Alistair Walker Infrequent Flyers - Single Cask 1

Knockdhu is a Highland distillery whose clean, high quality single malt whisky is officially bottled as An Cnoc, due to the perceived likelihood of confusion with the Knockando distillery. Inver House bought Knockdhu in 1988 from Diageo forerunners United Distillers, who had mothballed the distillery in 1983. Production at Knockdhu began again in 1989 and Inver House introduced the An Cnoc name in the early 1990s for a shortlived 12-year-old official bottling. 

After reverting to the Knockdhu name for a pair of highly-regarded 21-year-old and 23-year-old official bottlings at the turn of the millennium, the An Cnoc brand was given a transformative overhaul by Inver House for a hugely successful relaunch in 2003. A variety of vintage and age statement bottlings have appeared since, alongside several no-age-statement bottlings and even some peated whiskies. Independent bottlings of Knockdhu are relatively rare.

Alistair Walker started in the whisky industry straight out of university in the late 1990s when he worked for several years with his father Billy Walker at Burn Stewart. After returning to university for a Masters degree, Walker rejoined the trade in 2004, again working with Billy Walker, who had purchased Benriach distillery in the meantime. 

Walker remained with Benriach Distillery Company until its purchase by Brown Forman in 2016, and founded The Alistair Walker Whisky Company in 2018. The company has since released several dozen single cask malt and grain whiskies under its Infrequent Flyers label, bottled at cask strength without colouring or chill filtration. Walker is an advocate of cask finishing and a significant proportion of the Infrequent Flyers releases have had a secondary maturation.