Ardmore Traditional Cask

Ardmore is a Highland malt whisky distillery founded in 1898 by the Teacher’s family to supply single malt whisky for their famous blend. Teacher’s was taken over by Allied Breweries in 1976, by which time Ardmore had expanded to eight stills. Allied was itself swallowed by Jim Beam Brands in 2005, and Ardmore was launched as a single malt in 2007 with the release of Ardmore Traditional Cask. Jim Beam merged with the Japanese drinks giant Suntory in 2014. 

Ardmore makes both peated and unpeated spirit, but only the peated version is bottled as single malt. Prior to the Jim Beam takeover, the only official Ardmores were a handful of legendary heavily sherried 1970s bottlings by Teacher’s and a pair of centenary bottlings from 1999. Under Beam/Suntory, official Ardmores are now widely available, while independent Ardmore is abundant and generally of excellent quality.

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.