Millburn 1969-2005 - 35 Year Old - Rare Malts 51.2%

Millburn is a lost Highland distillery, another victim of Diageo forerunner DCL’s catastrophic wave of distillery closures in the 1980s. The distillery’s character was very traditional old school unsexy Highland style, with a tweedy, waxy, oily funk and sometimes a thread of smoke. Aged for long periods in refill wood, Millburns often show a delightful fruitiness.

The only official bottlings of Millburn were a trio of Rare Malts editions released between 1995-2005; all are excellent, but the standout was the classic 35-year-old Millburn 1969, which has become highly sought after. Independent bottlings of Millburn are relatively scarce, with only a tiny number released in the last decade. Unless Diageo or Gordon & MacPhail are hoarding stock for a 40-year-old Millburn release it seems likely that the last cask from this splendid lost Inverness distillery may already have been bottled.

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.