Girvan 1964-2001 - 37 Year Old

The Girvan distillery was constructed in 1963 by William Grant & Sons, owners of Glenfiddich and Balvenie, and has been creating quality single grain whisky for the company’s blended whisky brands ever since. The move was necessary after Grant’s had broken a gentleman’s agreement with the rest of the industry not to advertise their whisky on television, imperilling their supply of grain whisky from rivals DCL.

The short-lived Ladyburn single malt distillery was built onsite at Girvan in 1965, but ceased production in 1975. In 2007 the Ailsa Bay single malt distillery was built at Girvan with considerably more success, and now produces around 12m litres of malt whisky per annum alongside Girvan’s output of 100 million litres of grain spirit. Girvan is also home to Grant’s Hendrick’s Gin, which has its own stillhouse within the complex.

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.