Tomintoul 12 Year Old - 1990s

Tomintoul is an overlooked distillery at auction, meaning that the distillery’s high quality drams often represent very good value for drinkers. Rescued from Whyte & MacKay in 2000 when it was bought by Angus Dundee Distillers, Tomintoul’s motto ‘The Gentle Dram’ is a good indicator of what to expect from most modern bottlings.

It might be thought that Tomintoul’s misfortune is to be a purveyor of subtle, nuanced Speyside whisky in an era where boisterous heavily-flavoured peaty or sherried whiskies are in vogue, but the distillery also makes a heavily-peated malt whisky of its own which is marketed as Old Ballantruan.

At auction, long-aged independent bottlings of Tomintoul and official releases from the 1970s or early 1980s often reveal a slightly more robust, fruity, waxy Highland style, and generally offer an impressive bang for your buck.

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.