Macduff 1990 - 17 Year Old - Creative Whisky Company - Exclusive Malts - Single Cask 1043

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 Creative Whisky Company is an independent bottler created by husband and wife team Susan and David Stirk in late 2004. David Stirk had previously worked for both Whisky Magazine and Cadenhead’s and had picked up good contacts in the industry and experience in cask selection and bottling. 

The Creative Whisky Co. company bottled hundreds of malt and grain whiskies from 2005 onwards, the majority of which were single casks bottled at cask strength for the company’s Exclusive Malts series. These whiskies were very fairly priced at the time and remain good value at auction. The Stirks sold the business in 2018 to a private consortium, and no further bottlings have appeared at the time of writing in 2022.