Mortlach 1991 - 20 Year Old - First Cask - Single Cask 5884

Mortlach is one of the greatest Speyside whiskies in Diageo’s portfolio. The distillery’s robust, gutsy, earthy, beefy new make is a result of running the stills fast and using worm tub condensers, which minimises copper contact and gives a powerfully flavoured, deliberately sulphury new make that is frequently matured in sherry casks. 

Following the discontinuation of the much-loved Mortlach 16-year-old Flora & Fauna, the first official Mortlach core range was introduced in 2014 but flopped disastrously due to comically high pricing; the subsequent relaunch in 2018, with a return to reality-based pricetags, has been much more successful.  Gordon & MacPhail were previous licensed bottlers of Mortlach and have bottled the greatest examples from the distillery, including the famous Book of Kells editions and the extraordinary Generations bottlings, which included the first 70 and 75-year-old single malt whiskies ever bottled.

The First Cask range was a prolific series of single malt whisky bottlings by the UK’s largest mail order wine company Direct Wines Ltd, owner of Laithwaite’s and The Sunday Times Wine Club. From the early 1990s until the mid-Noughties Direct Wines released dozens of outstanding single cask whiskies annually under the First Cask label, almost all of which were bottled at 46%.

These whiskies were not particularly highly sought-after on release, probably because they were only sold online through a wine club.  Back then, of course, it was not widely known that the casks had been sourced from Signatory Vintage, which would certainly have raised their profile among whisky fans. Nowadays, although still frequently excellent value at auction, the First Cask collection - which includes hundreds of long-aged whiskies from distilleries including Brora, Port Ellen, Ardbeg and Macallan - is finally getting the recognition it deserves.