Macduff 1984 - 24 Year Old - First Cask - Single Cask 874

Built in 1962, Macduff is a relatively large, though quiet, Highland distillery that spends its days making high quality single malt spirit for owner Bacardi’s blended whisky portfolio. Perhaps due to the Macduff name’s similarity to Miltonduff, official bottlings of Macduff’s whisky appeared as Glen Deveron until 2015, when a new range was launched as The Deveron.

Stylistically, Macduff is closer to its near neighbours on Speyside than the classic Highland style, with a clean, technically pure, malty, sweet, fruity style. At auction, 1960s vintages by Douglas Laing and Duncan Taylor are the most highly sought after, with the best value probably the 1970s vintages by First Cask and 1990s vintages bottled by Signatory and Ian MacLeod.

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.