Macallan 1988-2004 - 16 Year Old - Douglas Laing - Old Malt Cask - Single Cask

The grandest of Speyside’s blue chip distilleries, Macallan was founded in 1824 and carved a reputation for luxury single malt whisky in the 1980s with string of 18-year-old and 25-year-old sherry-matured vintage single malts distilled in the 1960s and 1970s, building on the renown of earlier highly-regarded licensed bottlings by Gordon & MacPhail and Campbell, Hope and King.

In the early 2000s, as the supply and quality of even the best sherry casks declined dramatically, Macallan introduced their Fine Oak series, an initially controversial range of bottlings that included bourbon-matured spirit in the cask recipe. While the Fine Oak series took some time to find its audience, Macallan’s status as the top Speyside distillery - particularly at auction - was already well-established and today a legion of eager Macallan fans ensure that each new luxury bottling from the distillery sells out immediately on release.

Founded in the late 1940s by Fred Douglas Laing Sr, the Douglas Laing company spent decades as whisky blenders and exporters before Fred Laing’s sons Stewart and Fred Jr introduced the highly influential Old Malt Cask single malt range in 1998. The McGibbon’s Provenance and Old & Rare Platinum series followed soon afterwards, establishing Douglas Laing as one of Scotland’s finest independent bottlers.

In 2013 Stewart Laing left the business, taking Old Malt Cask and Old & Rare to his new company Hunter Laing, while Fred Laing Jr was joined by his daughter Cara and her husband Chris Leggatt from Morrison Bowmore, who left the business in 2023. The Old Particular and Extra Old Particular ranges were introduced to replace Old Malt Cask and Old & Rare, and the company has since moved into distilling with the purchase of Strathearn distillery in 2019 and the construction of Clutha distillery in Glasgow.