Miltonduff 1982 - 22 Year Old - First Cask - Single Cask 6162

Miltonduff distillery is a large, quiet Speyside workhorse, spending its days providing spirit for Ballantine’s blended whisky, with which it has been associated since 1936 when Ballantine’s owner Hiram Walker bought the distillery. Miltonduff and Ballantine’s became part of Pernod Ricard’s portfolio when former owner Allied Domecq was gobbled up by Pernod in 2005. In 2022 a major expansion plan was announced for Miltonduff that will take the distillery’s capacity to almost 16m litres per year.

In 1964, during the Hiram Walker days, Miltonduff was fitted with a pair of Lomond stills, on which the experimental Mosstowie single malt was produced until 1981. Independent bottlings of Mosstowie can still be found at auction, with excellent examples by Signatory and Sestante. Official bottlings of Miltonduff are rare, but there have been some great casks over the years from the likes of Gordon & MacPhail, Duncan Taylor, the SMWS and the Italian bottlers Sestante, Samaroli and Moon Import.

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.