VAT 69 Reserve 12 Year Old - 1980s - Ceramic

The historic blended Scotch whisky Vat 69 was created in 1882 by William Sanderson, who had set up his whisky business in Edinburgh in 1863. As the story goes, the brand was born when Sanderson vatted almost a hundred casks of different recipes of whisky for friends and colleagues to taste and the assembled company all favoured the whisky in Vat 69. Contemporary wits quickly decided Vat 69 was actually the pope’s phone number.

Soon after the creation of Vat 69, Sanderson and his son bought Glen Garioch distillery, whose malt was the heart of the blend for many years. After his death in 1908, Sanderson’s company was run by his son and then his grandson before being absorbed into Diageo forerunner Distillers Company Limited (DCL) in 1937. In the late 1970s, after a row with the EEC over parallel exports, DCL priced Vat 69 out of the UK market, although it remains a popular export whisky brand.