Aultmore 12 Year Old - Pre 2014 Edition

Aultmore is a Speyside distillery founded in 1896. The distillery was purchased in 1923 by John Dewar & Sons, who amalgamated with Diageo forerunners DCL soon afterwards in 1925. Aultmore was rebuilt and modernised in 1971, when the distillery was expanded to four stills. In 1998 Aultmore was one of the five Dewar’s distilleries sold to Bacardi as part of the deal with the Monopolies and Mergers Commission that approved the creation of Diageo.

Aultmore has spent most of its life making single malt for Dewar’s and other blended whiskies. A 12-year-old official bottling appeared sporadically throughout the 1970s and 1980s before being reincarnated in United Distillers’ Flora & Fauna range in 1991. Vintage cask strength Aultmores were released in the 1990s for Flora & Fauna, the Rare Malts and for the distillery’s centenary. Under Bacardi, the 12-year-old Aultmore was rebranded again before Aultmore's first official full range was finally launched in 2014. Independent Aultmore is abundant.

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.