Tomatin 1976 - 18 Year Old - First Cask - Single Cask 27644

Tomatin’s splendid Highland single malt whisky has long been an unsung hero, despite being at one point the largest distillery in Scotland, with a 1974 expansion taking the total number of stills to 23 before financial liquidation in the 1980s ushered in a long, stable era of Japanese ownership. Nowadays, Tomatin has cut back to 12 stills and has a capacity of around 5m litres per annum, although actual production is only around 2m litres. 

Tomatin has increased its profile recently, reaping the benefits of a strong wood policy, and awareness of the distillery’s quality is higher than ever thanks to some spectacular official and independent bottlings of 1970s vintages, the best of which show beautiful tropical fruit notes. The standard range is full of reliably high quality drams that punch above their price, and older bottlings of Tomatin are still very good value at auction.

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.