Speyburn 10 Year Old - Circa 2000

One of Diageo’s smallest and most obscure distilleries, Glen Spey was built in Rothes in 1878. The distillery was soon acquired by W & A Gilbey (more famous for their gin), who merged into International Distillers and Vintners in 1962. IDV subsequently became part of Grand Metropolitan, which merged with Guinness to become Diageo in 1997.

Glen Spey has been supplying the J&B blend since the days of IDV, and official bottlings are extremely scarce. An official 8-year-old was bottled in the 1980s during the GrandMet era, but this was the first and only OB until the Flora & Fauna 12-year-old appeared from Diageo in 2001, since which there have been only a couple of single cask bottlings and one Special Release in 2010. Independent bottlings of Glen Spey are easy to find, with highly rated 1970s vintages by First Cask, Jack Weiber and Dewar Rattray among others.

Distillery bottlings are, as the name suggests, bottled by or for the distillery from which the whisky has originated and are thus often referred to as Official Bottlings or OBs. Distillery bottlings are generally more desirable for collectors and usually fetch higher prices at auction than independent bottlings. They are officially-endorsed versions of the whisky from a particular distillery and are therefore considered the truest expression of the distillery’s character.

This ideal of the distillery character is regarded so seriously by the distilleries and brand owners that casks of whisky that are considered to vary too far from the archetype are frequently sold on to whisky brokers and independent bottlers. When this happens, it is often with the proviso that the distillery’s name is not allowed to be used when the cask is bottled for fear of diminishing or damaging the distillery’s character and status.