Mannochmore 1977-1994 - 16 Year Old - Cadenheads Miniature

Mannochmore is a quiet, but very large, Diageo distillery built in 1971 next to the Glenlossie distillery in Speyside. The vast majority of Mannochmore’s spirit goes to Diageo’s Haig blended whisky, with the only ongoing official bottling being the 12-year-old Flora and Fauna edition. Mannochmore’s house style tends towards what might be considered as a more typical Highland style: fresh, grassy, ultra-pure malt that is frequently quite austere and therefore very well-suited to long ageing. 

The best official Mannochmores are the super-austere Rare Malts 1974 edition which appeared in 1997, the same year as the equally excellent 18-year-old Manager’s Dram; and the more oak-driven 1990 vintage bottlings done for the Special Releases in 2009 and 2016. Independent Mannochmores are abundant, but most are quite young; older casks appear occasionally from the likes of Gordon & MacPhail, Cadenhead’s and the SMWS and are well worth tracking down.

In 1842 George Duncan established a wine merchant and distillery agency business in Aberdeen. Duncan was joined in the early 1850s by his brother-in-law William Cadenhead, who took over the business after Duncan’s death in 1858, changing the company’s name to Wm. Cadenhead. When Cadenhead died in 1904 the company passed to his nephew Robert Duthie, who developed the spirits side of the business.

Duthie died suddenly in 1931, and employee Ann Oliver was put in charge of Cadenhead’s. Sadly, Oliver’s tenure ended in financial difficulty and on her retirement in 1972 the business was forced to sell its entire inventory. Cadenhead’s was acquired soon afterwards by J & A Mitchell, proprietors of Springbank distillery, who relocated the business to Campbeltown. Cadenhead’s has flourished under Mitchell’s stewardship, releasing many legendary single malt bottlings in the 1980s and 1990s and now has outlets in Edinburgh and London as well as Campbeltown.