Undisclosed American Distillery 4 Year Old - Cadenheads World Whiskies - Single Cask - 2022 Release

Undisclosed bottlings are whiskies bottled independently without using the distillery’s name on the label. This can occur when an independent bottler releases a cask of whisky from a distillery that has expressly stipulated as a condition of sale that its name be withheld when those casks are bottled. Macallan, Glenlivet, Glenmorangie, Laphroaig, Lagavulin, Glenfarclas and Highland Park are among the most famous, if not necessarily the most frequently-encountered, of the distillers who regularly go unnamed.

Other common reasons for a distillery’s single malt whisky not being named on the label include independent companies simply choosing the flexibility of not naming the source distilleries for their proprietary brands in case they wish to use multiple source distilleries or to change their source distillery at a later date. Bottlings from Undisclosed distilleries are always cheaper than their official distillery counterparts and are generally excellent value in the secondary market.

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.